Running with the Crow
by Shinigami no Seishi
Summary: "He stared into the sun until he saw nothing but white light. Then he closed his eyes and fell backward. Kuronue folded his wings and plummeted with him, laughing." Crossover-fusion with The Crow. Shonen-ai leanings, but nothing definate as of now.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: All aspects of Yu Yu Hakusho belong to Yoshihiro Togashi. The Crow is a registered trademark of Pressman Films. I used both without knowledge or permission. Yea, verily. 

WARNINGS: **Dark AU, angst, torture**, all the good stuff. Um…references to **rape**. OOC Kurama, possibly others. I think that covers it. Oh, wait, I have also **royally fucked up** the YYH **timeline**. 

PAIRINGS: N/A 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the first time I've ever written a story based on a picture. Um… I really don't know what that has to do with anything. Oh, also, I've only seen the movies (yes, all three). So, hardcore _Crow_ fans might want to skip this one. I'm sure I mess up a bunch of cannon details. 

This one's for Ryo. ^_~ 

-Chapter 1-

His heartbeat sounded like the ocean, like tides moving, waves crashing frantically against high cliffs. All he could feel was disbelief. Disbelief and a cold cold rage.

_Don't let it end like this._

He began struggling again, but they were coordinated, now, practiced at holding him down, and he couldn't manage so much as a scratch on the nearest one.

_How can it end like this?_

Laughter. His hearing was fading, outside noises muted by the roar of his own blood, and the labored, dry sound of his own breathing, but he could still hear them laughing. 

Out of the eye that could still see, he found himself focusing on strange details—a small silver loop earring, gold belt buckle, intricately inlaid Chinese dragon etched into the black enameled hilt of a dagger, beard burn sliding across his cheek as the one on top of him nuzzled him almost affectionately.

He closed his eyes and thought hateful things.

_Just slip a little, bastards, and I'll be the one to demand you beg for mercy._

His mind was surprisingly clear, if not entirely coherent, and beneath it all, in time with his heartbeat, was a single driving objective.

_Kill. _

_Kill. _

_Kill them all._

He refused to let it go, though his body knew it was all bravado. He could barely move, let alone fight. He closed a tight fist on the handful of his mother's hair they'd given him after they'd finished with her, and nearly choked on unexpected tears.

_Don't cry for them!_

They hadn't been able to force anything more than a few grunts out of him yet, and he wasn't about to give them any more satisfaction now.

Hands closed on his throat.

_Can't breathe!_

A mock-gentle voice spoke soothingly in his ear as his body bucked instinctively, still fighting in spite of the futility.

_Can't_—

Then the dagger, silver fish diving down toward his eye.

_Blinding me? _

And for some reason, that terrified him all the more. But, no, only hot slashes into his cold skin—surprisingly shallow—two below his eye and two above.

_Can't_—

Cuts repeated on the other side. He saw only the silver earring as one of them leaned over and traced the lines with a burning tongue.

_Can't let it end like this!_

But the swallowing darkness begged to differ.

Strange to wake up later, surrounded by people. 

They were some parts disgusted, some parts grieving, all parts professional. He took in the busy swarm around his mangled body, and had the brief thought that death shouldn't be like this.

He could see as dreamers saw, floating above it all, existing but unable to interact. He was pulled through the room without consciously willing it, watching the world in shades of blue and gray, blurred around the edges. There was the murmur of voices all around, but he could only understand the people closest to him.

He shivered as a man stepped into the same space he was occupying—and suddenly, he could hear the man's thoughts and see through his eyes.

_Jesus, not another one, _the man was thinking as he made his careful way toward the body on the table. He pulled the sheet away and winced. _Just a kid this time. Christ, these people are monsters._

The dead kid on the table didn't look half bad, considering they'd slashed his face up. These cuts—the man knew—would be the only ones on the kid that weren't random. They would be shallow and precise, deliberately placed thin triangles just above and just below the eyes, two lines extending the breadth of lips at either corner of a generous mouth.

The man's professional eye took over, noting details and filing them, unfaltering despite the sick feeling that had settled in his stomach.

Young. The kid was painfully young—15 or 16 at most. Bright red hair, strange for Tokyo, dark bruises stark against his pale throat. He lifted the sheet a bit more, frown deepening. More bruises, especially around the kid's wrists, and lacerations—they'd really put the kid through the wringer.

_Jesus,_ he thought finally, dropping the sheet back to cover the body, resisting the ridiculous urge to tuck it in around the kid's shoulders like he did with his eight-year-old daughter when she got afraid of the dark. This kid wouldn't have to be afraid of anything anymore. _I need a drink._

His partner was a sudden presence at his elbow that he didn't even need to turn to acknowledge. She reached past him to lift the sheet and study the kid's face.

"Another one," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed tiredly.

"Same marks on the face. Still think it's ritualistic?"

"Got any better ideas?"

Her silence was answer enough. He patted through his pockets until his hand encountered the reassuring feel of a pack of cigarettes. He knew better than to light up here, but as soon as he got outside…

"His name was Minamino Shuichi," she said, and he could hear her flipping through paperwork. "Ring any bells?"

"Should it?"

"He's a student at Meiou High School."

"Yeah?"

"He had the highest test scores in Japan."

That gave him a pause. He turned finally and looked at her, seeing what he'd known he'd see—Yamamoto Youko, looking sharp and filled to the brim with steal-edged energy, her short hair unruffled, her minimal make-up unsmeared. He felt all the more exhausted just seeing her.

"Do you think that has anything to do with anything?" he asked incredulously.

She shrugged. "It was just something…" she said, giving him a look that made him know she was apologizing, and closed the file she held in her hands.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought he looked familiar," he told her, accepting her apology. "Does he have any relatives?"

Her eyes flicked to the other sheeted form on the floor of the living room. "None surviving."

"Jesus."

The man moved on, but the restless spirit stayed where he was, eyes fixed on the other form lying still beneath the white sheet.

_Kasaan._

Anger rose again, choking, filling the room with leaping reds and oranges. One of the police officers was reaching for her body and he lashed out, furious.

_GET AWAY FROM HER!_

Sudden wind slammed the front door shut, making the humans jump. The colors tore the room apart like a tornado, and he stood at the center, smiling, gleeful that at least this was in his power.

_GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!_

Then Botan was there, floating on her oar, looking horrified, her incorporeal hair blowing wild in the non-physical wind.

_Finally._

"Botan!" he called to her. Something had to be done. This wasn't right. He'd have revenge, now or when those who had done this were dead. He'd speak to Koenma. There were terrible things a person could do to a soul if they had the knowledge and the power, and he had both.

But she didn't seem to see him, or hear. She swept through the room once, her course wobbling slightly as his frustration made the storm rage stronger. As she passed near him he reached out to catch her, but his hand passed through her broom as if he were—

_A ghost._

Which was ridiculous, because of course that's what he was, and yet, it shouldn't have mattered where Botan was concerned.

_"Botan!"_ he cried, stretching out to her with more than fingertips.

_Don't leave me alone here don't_—

She stopped so suddenly that he caught his breath, hope a butterfly wing flutter in his chest. She turned toward him and he nearly sang.

But her eyes were closed, her hands pressed together before her chest. And her lips were moving silently.

_An incantation?_

Before he could become alarmed she opened her eyes, her right hand snapping down diagonally to point two fingers at the ground and he doubled over, dropping to his knees, fingers clawing desperately at the invisible hands that had closed over his throat.

_No!_

He flung all of his power outward, too desperate to be focused.

A great explosion of noise as every single thing glass in the house shattered all at once.

Humans running and screaming and Botan still hovering in the center of the room with a stern expression on her sweet features. 

Her hand came up and snapped down again.

It drove him further into the ground, and he screamed silently against the press of stoic will—pure divine power. He knew what this was.

_Exorcism. _

She thought he was an evil spirit!

_Well, aren't you?_

_No!_ he cried, struggling.

_No no no!_

He was being strangled again, returned to the earth, unable to fight back, unable to save—

Unable to _avenge_—

And then he could breathe again, felt cool fingers against the hot brands where a laughing man had left bruises in his skin—lashed out blindly, fear cutting off his air again. When the strong, smooth hands caught his tightly he saw—

—_Himself, laughing. Himself, through someone else's eyes. Himself, all silver with moonlight and strong with the knowledge that death would have to wait yet another day, splayed against the dark leaves, yielding just a little into the soft earth that smelled of soft earth things, allowing dominance, grinning a sharp-toothed smile_—

He gasped and jerked back, struggling in that awkward way of someone trying to escape without touching his captor.

"Shhhh, Kurama," a deep voice soothed, underscored by the rustle of great wings.

Kurama opened his eyes.

Then he shut them again, tightly, and vowed never to look at the world again.

"Kurama." There was indulgent amusement in the voice, this time.

"No," he said firmly.

"No?"

"No, absolutely not."

"You don't even know what you're refusing."

A soft touch, balm to the raw skin it stroked, slid over his lips and cheeks, settling on his throat and staying there, even though he flinched, until the feeling of bruises was a soft-spoken memory. He felt tears wet his lashes and swallowed hard. He would not cry.

"Kurama," breathed softly against his hair, arms circling him, wings folding in and he turned his head unconsciously to brush his face against soft feathers. Yet, he still resisted being pulled into the embrace. He didn't want to admit any further weakness to this person who had once been his partner.

He stiffened when he realized he was being pulled forward. "Don't," he gasped, his voice a harsh rasp that hurt. His bare feet landed on the cold, smooth ground and his legs gave out, but he was caught and cradled until he forced himself to stand.

Guided, gently bullied, across the floor, his toes feeling grit, his ears hearing the soft hiss of leaves being moved in the faint breeze he could feel against his skin.

"Don't," he protested, trying to pull away. "Don't touch me, don't make me, don't—don't—"

"Look."

His wrists were captured lightly and pulled away from his chest as he tried to curl back into a defensive ball, compelled by a terror he didn't really understand. Only knowing that seeing would commit him to something too large to contemplate.

"Kurama, look."

Abruptly, he decided that unreasoning fear was a foolish reason to hide. He opened his eyes.

Himself, reflected in a mirror, shockingly pale—fragile. He'd never _seemed_ all that strong in his human form, but this…this was like transparency. He reached out, and his fingertips met cool glass when they touched the pallid image's cheek, then drifted across the cheekbone to rest on the triangle scar beneath wide, dark eyes.

Something burned like bile in his throat, and without thinking he smashed his fist into the ghostly image.

That's when he realized, as he watched the blood well from his knuckles and felt the sting of wounds, that he was alive.

A shadow behind him moved.

He whirled, unsteady legs dropping him back against the mirror. "You—!"

A large hand that could have crushed his skull cupped his chin gently, stilling his anger and surprise by laying the soft pad of a thumb on his lips. Kurama felt his expression mellow despite himself, and the thumb lifted, stroking across his lower lip, lingering on another scar—one that had widened his smile into a clown parody—before drifting down to the line of his jaw.

"You look…so strange like this," the shadow said, deep voice a purr in the dark.

"You're one to talk," Kurama returned, tossing his head a little in a contemptuous gesture that had worked much better when he'd had long silver hair. "Kuronue."

Toothy grin gleaming in the dark—most of his memories of his former partner involved that cocky Cheshire smile. He turned away before the past could overwhelm the present, placing his hand carefully over the broken edges of the mirror, watching the wounds on his hand close with preternatural speed.

"What is this?" he asked crossly. "Why are you here? Where is Koenma?"

"This has nothing to do with the Heir to the Underworld."

Kurama nearly turned at the formal tone, so contrary to everything he remembered of Kuronue. Instead, he let his hand slip deliberately over the razor cracks in the glass, feeling the burn as they unseamed his skin, the wet of blood in his palm.

"What does this have to do with, then?" The acrid taste in the back of his throat was not gone. It lingered and urged him to violence, but he would not lash out at ghosts and shadows, so he contented the desire by hurting himself.

"Vengeance."

Kurama closed his eyes and listened to the ripples the soft word made in the waiting silence.

"Your hate has weighted your soul," Kuronue continued. "No ferrygirl will be able to carry you across to the next world until the burden is lifted."

"That doesn't explain what you're doing here," Kurama said to the darkness behind his eyelids. Lashes twitched against his cheeks as Kuronue's hand passed softly over his face.

"I am your guide."

Kurama opened his eyes and his painted reflection smiled back at him from the facets of the broken mirror—clown white, interrupted by black that traced the scars, hid them. His eyes were fierce, like green flame shining out from all that black.

And somehow, it felt right.

~*~

Kuwabara stared at the heap of paperwork in front of him, and then longingly at the empty coffee cup beside it. Reaching out with his pen, he tapped it against the ceramic in an offbeat rhythm until Tekko stuck her head around the corner and said dryly, "You rang?"

He grinned his most disarming smile, and then tried to shift immediately into a kicked puppy look as he fixed his stare on the mug and sighed meaningfully.

Tekko tried to laugh and be annoyed at the same time, but finally settling amusement. "Grown men," she groused as she swooped past his desk and picked up the cup. "I can never quite tell the difference between you and my five-year-old."

"Five-year-olds don't like coffee," Kuwabara said sagely.

Tekko returned and handed him the full coffee cup with a wry little twist of lips. "You don't know my five-year-old."

He took a sip and sighed blissfully, "Thanks."

"No problem," she said, and leaned against his desk. "I know how you caffeine addicts can get if you don't get your fix every two hours." She tilted her head at him and folded her arms. "Aren't you here a little late? I mean, even for you?"

"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed, stretching, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just this case…"  


She leaned over a bit to get a look at the files. "The Hazama case? Jeez, that little girl… That's tough."

"Yeah." He stared at the documents until they began to blur, but they still refused to yield any answers.

"Hey," Tekko piped into the pressing quiet. "I'm going out for a smoke. Wanna join me?"

He gave her a curious look. "Why don't you just smoke in here, like everyone else?"

"And make this place more stuffy than it already is? Not if I can help it." She straightened and smirked lopsidedly. "Come on. The fresh air will be good for you."

"I think all the good of the air will be effectively countered by the poison I'll be sucking into my lungs."

"Hey." She cuffed his shoulder. "Snob."

"Tekko, in case you've missed it, it's pouring outside!"

She turned and looked out the window, where the indoor light sent dazzling flashes off the rain pouring through a black sky, then turned back to him.

"Wimp," she scoffed, grinning. "Are you made of sugar? Will you melt? Besides, there _is_ an overhang."

Despite his continuing protests, in a minutes he was standing outside, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold and clinging wind, listening to Tekko emote about her son and husband. She didn't offer him a cigarette and he didn't ask for one. He just watched his breath mist and let the stories of her family warm him until she dropped her cigarette on the pavement and ground it out with her toe.

The tingle of youki down his spine jerked him out of his slouch in surprise.

"Do you hear something?" she asked, tilting her head.

He didn't answer, but stepped instinctively in front of her, straining his senses into the night. The roar of a motorcycle put him off guard again. What kind of demon rode a…

The figure tearing out of the dark was dressed all in black, face hidden behind a black helmet. The bike was headed straight for them with no sign of stopping. Kuwabara shoved Tekko back and clenched his hands into fists, ready to summon his reiken in an instant.

But at the last moment, the motorcycle swerved, spraying him with a jet of water, and by the time he had recovered, the rider had lifted his facemask and was grinning devilishly at him.

"Yo! Kuwabara!" the rider greeted.

"You!" Tekko squawked, straightening. She took two strides to the bike and smacked Yuusuke on the back of his helmet. "Idiot!"

"Hey! Woman!" Yuusuke protested, while Kuwabara laughed his revenge. "Shut up!" he snapped in Kuwabara's direction, trying to fend the off the female police officer. Kuwabara just laughed harder.

"Serves you right, asshole," the orange-haired man chortled when things had settled and Tekko had gone back inside, though not without delivering one last swift kick to Yuusuke's bike. "What the hell was that all about?"

"Aww, I was just testing your reflexes," Yuusuke said. "You're getting on in years, after all—"

Before the smaller man could finish his sentence, Kuwabara had slapped his facemask closed, and tipped him back onto the rain-wet street, catching the bike before it could overbalance.

"My reflexes are just fine, thanks," he said as Yuusuke spluttered.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the ground, his head ringing and the helmet coming to a rest beside his hip.

"Yeah," de-helmetted Yuusuke smirked down at him, "I can see that."

"That hurt, bastard!" he snapped, picking up the helmet and aiming to throw. 

Yuusuke laughed, putting his hands up defensively. "Hey hey! It just hit your head—hardest part on ya!"

Kuwabara rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet. "Why are you here?"

For a moment, Yuusuke's expression clouded before he rallied another grin. "I told you real work would suck your brain out!"

"What?"

Yuusuke glared. "It's _tonight_, stupid!"

Kuwabara blinked. "Yeah?"

"You know. Tonight. It's Kur-Kurama's night." Yuusuke's voice quieted and broke off as his gaze dropped to the pavement. Kuwabara felt as if he'd been kicked, probably would've done the kicking had he not been standing in a public place.

He rubbed a weary hand through his hair and gave Yuusuke a wane look. "Right, sorry."

Yuusuke squinted at him. "That new case of yours must really be something."

"It is," Kuwabara answered seriously.

"I mean, it's not like we haven't been doing this for _years_."

"Look, I said I was sorry!"

"Alright, alright," Yuusuke acquiesced, producing another helmet from somewhere and strapping it on. "Come on, let's get going."

"On that thing?" Kuwabara eyed the bike dubiously.

"Ain't scared, are ya?" Yuusuke asked slyly.

Kuwabara scowled. "No."

"Well then?"

Kuwabara sighed and put his helmet on.

When they reached the shrine, Yukina was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. She looked as she had always looked—young and gentle, like a goodly creature straight from a picture book, dressed in a sky-blue kimono. The rain caught in her pale green hair created a fairy-light halo around her head. She smiled sweetly as Kuwabara stepped away from the bike to greet her, and he felt something warm turn over in his stomach as her eyes seemed to light up just for him. He smiled back, daring to reach out and draw her into a hug, resting his chin on top of her head.

"Kazuma-san," she murmured happily into his shoulder.

He broke the embrace so he could step back and look her in the eye. "Good evening, Yukina-san. How have you been? Should you be out here in all this rain?"

She laughed merrily. "A little rain never hurt an ice demoness, Kazuma-san. It's more something my brother might protest."

"Right," he said ruefully.

"Where _is_ your brother?" Yuusuke asked, as they followed her up the steps. "I sent a message to the Second Kingdom and never got an answer…not that I ever do."

"I'm sure he'll be here," Yukina answered with confidence. "He loved Kurama-san as much as anyone."

_Maybe more than anyone_, Kuwabara thought, buttoning up his trench coat against the rain.

A touch of dark-fire ki and a flash of silver were his only warnings before Hiei was standing in front of him with a sword to his throat. Kuwabara startled and nearly tipped over backwards with a cry of surprise.

"What was that, human?" the little dark fire demon demanded.

"I didn't _say anything!" Kuwabara protested, catching himself on the next step. _

"Hiei-san!" Yukina admonished. 

"Knock it off, Hiei," Yuusuke said, continuing past them. "Just let it rest for a night, okay? You can go back to being your big bad self tomorrow." 

"Big. Heh," Kuwabara snickered. 

Hiei rolled his eyes and sheathed his weapon. "Idiot. I'll meet you in the temple." Then he blurred out. 

Kuwabara thought of muttering obscenities and insults after him, but looked at Yukina and kept silent instead, trailing after her up the steep and multitudinous steps. 

At the top of the hill, they walked across a clearing with wet gravel sliding under their feet and entered the shrine where a fire burned high in the center of the room. Long shadows flickered like wild creatures dancing on the white-pine walls, lined in red and orange. Genkai glanced up at them as they came in. 

"You're late," she said, her voice like the gravel, rough and grinding. 

Both men ducked their heads in repentance, hovering in the doorway as if they needed permission to enter. Yukina moved past them with a forgiving smile and knelt on the floor next to the old priestess. Genkai turned her head as Hiei blurred into existence beside her, letting Yuusuke and Kuwabara breathe. 

Yuusuke looked as if he might say something cocky to break the tension holding the room on puppet strings, but Kuwabara gave him the evil eye and nudged him toward his place around the fire. As they settled and joined hands, Genkai closed her eyes. 

"Let's begin," she said. 

~*~ 

Kurama jerked and stumbled into a wall. Tipping toward the floor, he clutched his forehead as _friends flame calling flashed like red lightning in his mind. It was gone just as quickly and Kurama straightened, looking questions at Kuronue, who stood beside him, concerned. _

"That was—" 

"You must try to ignore it, Kurama." 

"Ignore it?" he echoed incredulously, eyes closing, trying to recapture the image. It was like remembering laughter and he smiled for the first time in years. 

"It has nothing to do with your mission." 

"Kuronue," Kurama said in a tone of one who knew the winged demon had never cared anything for rules or regulations. 

Kuronue gave him a wane smile and rolled his eyes a bit. "I know, I know," he sighed. "Look, I know you want to go to them, but you really _can't. They have nothing to do with what you are now. It kinda…screws up the power, you know?" _

Kurama searched for conformation and felt a shiver up his spine that felt like feathers brushing along his skin and tilted his head back, fingers stretching as if to touch the borders of his soul. All around him, the air hummed with _desire want hate and he could feel the crimp this vision had left in the aura. _

Kurama gasped as the _call hit him again. "What are they __doing?" _

"Looking for you. They know your soul hasn't reported to the Underworld." Kuronue tilted his head, which made the shadow of the wide brim of his hat cover most of his face. "They've been performing this little ritual for six years, now." 

"Six _years?" _

"Yes." Kuronue slanted him a look. "Botan exorcised you, you know. We had to uproot your spirit before we could exhume your body. It took time." 

Kurama shook his head, to clear it or to disbelieve, he wasn't sure which, and then it was— 

_**Kurama where are you?**_

Grief, as raw as his own, wrapped up in more memories than he could carry alone. He was halfway down the dark, cold hallway before Kuronue jerked him up short. 

"Kurama…" Soft warning. 

Kurama turned his head, saw pale worry in the pinched lips and narrowed eyes. He looked away, eyes forward, and set his focus on the double set of automatic doors at the end of the hall. They gleamed silver, letting fluorescent streetlamp light cut across the floor like a pathway. For the first time, he wondered where he was—how someplace this big could be abandoned as if it didn't matter. His nostrils flared and he caught the scent of sterility, making him think of hospitals. 

Kuronue's hand tightened, pinching nerves. 

"Please," Kurama said quietly. 

Kuronue let him go. 

He was shoeless, dressed in a black satin outfit that was vaguely oriental, flying across the land as if broken beer bottles and rocks meant nothing to his feet. The world was a blur. Sometimes the blur held faces, or objects, but none interceded him as he passed them like a taste of wind. He wondered fleetingly if this was how Hiei saw things. Wondered if he could jump high enough to soar. 

Don't try it yet. The power comes differently for everyone. You might just land on your face. 

The voice of reason in a winged companion, travel-sized in the form of a black bird. Something old in Kurama's soul longed for the days when they had run side-by-side as equals. 

The landscape came to a rest as he stopped at the base of a shrine and let fingertips trace the edges of a motorcycle propped at the bottom of the steps, smiling to himself as Yuusuke embraced his senses until he lifted his hand away. The crow landed on the seat and blinked at him. He let his smile fade, startled when cold hate filled so easily the space left behind. 

What was he _doing here? He had no business amongst the living, lest it was to show them the quick way to death. He turned away— _

And stopped at the sight of two large, brown eyes. 

"Kur-Kurama?" Keiko's voice quivered like a dry leaf, and she suddenly looked just about as fragile. 

Kurama felt words freeze with breath in his throat and he took a step back, panicked. 

_Run._

The bird flapped large wings once, noise like shattering air in the stark moment, and took off. Kurama fled with it, Keiko's cry chasing his heels. 

~*~ 

Keiko felt coherence return seconds too late to do anything but stare into the night with the futile hope of seeing a hint of what could only have been a ghost. 

Except that she had seen his breath cloud the air in front of his painted lips. 

Her next coherent thought sent her up the shrine steps at a frantic run. 

"Yuusuke!" she cried, throwing the sliding doors open. Her husband looked up, leather jacket in hand. The fire had burned low and the five people in the room all looked tired and somber as they gathered their personals, the ceremony breaking up. Yuusuke dropped his jacket and opened his arms as she ran toward him. 

"Keiko?" he questioned. As he folded her into his hug, his body remained tense. She knew he was watching over her shoulder for trouble. 

She put her cheek to his collarbone and said, "It's Kurama." 

He took her by the arms and pushed her back a step. "What?" 

"Kurama," she said clearly, holding his gaze. "I thought I saw him—" 

"Where?" This from Kuwabara and echoed by Botan. 

"Outside…he was standing by Yuusuke's motorcycle." 

Hiei flickered like a dark flame and was gone. 

"Are you certain?" Genkai asked in her low, serious voice. 

"I—" Was she? Keiko was a logical person at heart. But for the fact that her husband was part demon and her best friend a ferrygirl for the Underworld, she would not have believed in the supernatural. She preferred solid reality to spirits and magic. "I…think so. He was…strange." 

Genkai's eyes were the youngest, sharpest part of her as they stared at Keiko from a withered woman's face. "Strange?" 

Hiei was back. "I don't see him anywhere. I don't sense him anywhere. I don't smell him anywhere," he reported, and glared at Keiko like she had insulted his mother. She might have gotten defensive if she hadn't known that's how Hiei always looked. 

"Nothing?" Yuusuke asked, fading hope bright and brittle in his voice and eyes. 

Hiei paused, lips parting uncertainly, and suddenly all eyes were focused on him. "There might have been…something." 

Focus shifted to Genkai, who always had the answers when things got mysterious. 

"How was he strange, Keiko?" the old priestess asked. 

"He…his face was painted. White. With black around his eyes and mouth. Sort of like a clown. A morbid clown." And she almost giggled when she said it, though there was nothing funny about it at all. 

"What does it mean?" Yukina questioned in the quiet. 

"It means," Genkai said, "that Kurama is back." 

~*~ 

Kurama let the world shift around him as he ran, the only thing in focus the black bird whose wings reflected the night. In his head, Kuronue's voice rang. 

This business, this vengeance-beyond-the-grave business, comes with a lot of perks, but it also has a lot of loopholes. Big, fucking loopholes that you could fall right into and never come out again. You have to stick to the rules—there are no second chances. So listen up, Rambo, 'cause here they are: 

He landed on a fire escape and crouched on the railing, just to prove to himself that he could balance there without wavering. Below him, a discrete but steady line of patrons were being admitted into a nondescript warehouse through a solid steel door where a single but impressively sized bouncer stood guard. The city liked to believe that places like this didn't exist, but they were easy enough to find for people who knew their way in the dark. 

Kill only those people on your list. There are names engraved in your heart, etched in your soul. Kill no one but those you have returned to kill. 

Burning in his mind were the names of the dead, and the power pulled him toward the building with all the subtlety of iron to a magnet. 

You are not Superman. You do not get to be a flashy superhero with spectacular entrances and fancy tights. You are a ghost with borrowed breath and limited time. Go in, do the job, get out again. Be quick, be neat, and keep a low profile. You aren't an avenging angel bringing rains of fire and brimstone. You are an assassin with an edge. 

He dropped down onto the wet pavement, bare toes sliding slightly on a patch of oil. The rain had finally stopped, but it was still cold, and he was thoroughly soaked. He tucked his hands into his armpits and made his way toward the door. 

The bouncer looked him over and then grunted. "No shoes, no ID, no entry." 

Kurama opened his mouth but another voice overrode his, cultured, speaking in English. "It's alright, Antonio. He's with me." 

Kurama turned his head. 

Behind him stood a well-groomed man in green silk and black leather, looking expensive and tasteful and backed by an equally well-dressed entourage of lovely but tough-looking men and women, five in all. The man's hair was slicked back, and when he smiled, one of his teeth gleamed gold. 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hartfield," the bouncer was saying, sounding truly apologetic, "but I can't let him in without shoes." 

Without taking his eyes off Kurama, Hartfield tilted his chin back toward one of his posse and said, "Hawk, give him your shoes." 

An indignant young man with a mohawk choked on his disbelief. _"What? But-but what the fuck am I supposed to wear?" _

"I don't know and I don't care." 

"But—" 

"Hawk!" This time, Hartfield did look at him, and it quelled the other man quickly. 

Grumbling sullenly under his breath, Hawk unlaced his black boots and threw them at Kurama's feet. When Kurama bent down to put them on, he felt a hand settle on the small of his back, and when he straightened, it slid down further. Kurama reached back and caught the wandering fingers. 

—_smell of sweat and fear, little whimpering body curled up on the bed— _

Kurama tried to jerk away from the image, from the hot feel of lust uncurling like smoke under the man's slick exterior, but his hand was captured and he was pulled forward. Lips touched his ear. 

—_good boy good boy, he panted, stroking the young body. He'd paid good money for the little bastard— _

"Fiery," Hartfield was saying. "I like that." Kurama felt pain distantly as his arm was twisted up against his back. "Do you speak English, pretty thing?" 

Kurama didn't answer. He was searching his soul for the man's name. There was nothing, though. Hartfield was just commonplace child-raping scum, rot of the earth. Kurama let his eyes fall half-closed and felt regret. Hartfield laughed, turned him and shoved him toward the door. 

"Doesn't matter." 

Kurama entered the club with Hartfield's hand between his shoulder blades, and was pushed through the wilderness of bodies under the hot, stark colors of strobe lighting. He made it to the bar unscathed, except for the flickers of Hartfield's memories like razorblade slashes in his mind. The man pressed himself into Kurama's back and signaled the bartender. The bartender glanced at Hartfield, then set two drinks in front of Kurama without asking what he wanted. 

"Drink up," Hartfield purred in his ear, reaching around to grab one of the cocktails. 

Kurama blinked at a double image. For a moment, he saw the street, the door, the bouncer as if he were hovering above them. A man in black leather and spikes threw off Hawk's pawing and entered the club. 

Kurama turned his head toward the door as he reached out and touched his glass. Hartfield's hands were wandering again, his lips and tongue leaving hot brands of thought on Kurama's skin. The Crow narrowed his eyes and willed his vision to appear, until it did. The man from outside broke through a crowd of dancers and made a line toward them. 

"Man," he complained as he slumped against the bar next to them, "what the hell did you do to Hawk, man? Jesus, he's pissed off." He signaled the bartender. 

Kurama curled his fingers around his drink to keep himself from reaching out and breaking the man's neck. 

"Shark," Hartfield said with clear distaste. "Don't you have someplace you need to be?" 

Kurama's eyes settled on the other end of the bar where small, bright pills on a tinfoil sheet and a wad of money exchanged hands. Shark focused on him. He had a rat-like face and two days' growth of beard. 

"Fuck! Who's this pretty bitch?" 

Grubby fingers grabbed his chin. Kurama looked at him. 

—_A pretty woman struggled under him. She kept shaking her head, though her voice had given out long ago. Her soft hair had come loose from her neat bun, her soft skin streaked with tears— _

Kurama recognized his mother and nearly screamed out loud. 

"Hey." Shark's eyes narrowed. "I think I know you." 

Kurama slapped his hand away, barely able to keep from breaking fingers. 

"Fuck!" Shark snarled, rounding on him. Hartfield grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward with enough violence to suck away all of Shark's anger. Kurama, trapped between the two of them, considered Shark's throat until he found the jugular. 

"Do _not_ make a scene, little lackey," Hartfield hissed and released the other man with a shove. "Now find yourself a corner until you cool off."

"What about our meeting?"

"When I'm finished."

Muttering and eyeing Kurama murderously, the man downed his drink and moved off. Kurama felt the pull of his presence and took a step after him without realizing it. Hartfield pulled him up short.

"Come, lovely, let's not let him distract us."

Kurama considered brushing him off, then decided there were quicker and cleaner ways of getting rid of him. 

Clean up your messes, Kuronue's voice recited. The point of this deal is to tie up loose ends, not to make more of them.

As he allowed himself to be led away from the bar, his fingers brushed the jacket of the man on the end. He walked away with a tinfoil line of pills in his hand and the knowledge that mixing the red with the green ones was a formula for a very bad night.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: (ahem) Not Mine. (For longer disclaimer, see first chapter)

Chapter Summary: {_Sometimes, when I ran out of places I thought you might be, I looked for you in shadows, though I knew you hated the dark._} 

-Chapter 2-

Mr. Hartfield had a private room through a doorway hung with strands of beads. Kurama stopped just inside the room and looked around, taking stock of the low couch on one side, the nest of pillows on the other. TV screens set in the wall. 

Hartfield walked to the other end and pushed a code into a keypad, opening the wall, which turned out to be stocked with every liquor in every color known to man. Hartfield poured himself something teal. Kurama put two pills in his mouth.

Hartfield turned. "Do you want anything?"

Kurama kept silent, feeling the burn of drugs melting on his tongue and forcing himself not to swallow, though he didn't actually believe they would do him any harm. Hartfield's gaze grew hungry. He took four strides across the room and grabbed Kurama roughly, bringing their bodies together.

"Poor little lost boy," the man said, rubbing against Kurama. "Daddy'll take care of you."

Kurama kissed him, deep and hard, dropping the pills into the back of his throat where he swallowed them convulsively.

"Shit!" he snarled, shoving Kurama away. "What the fuck—"

The redhead kicked him in the solar plexus, knocking him back into the couch, and before he could move, Kurama had straddled him, holding him down with bare efforts as he started to convulse. 

Placing his lips next to the man's ear, he spoke in English. "Someday you will die," he promised. "And when that day comes, I hope it is slow and painful." He stood and stepped back, watching Hartfield's eyes roll back as he straightened his clothes. When a trickle of drool ran down his chin, Kurama left the room and went hunting.

Shark had to piss. He'd had to piss for the last ten minutes, but hadn't been able to find the bathroom. He was jostled across the dance floor, bumping into grinding bodies and cursing. Whatever the hell Chloe had given him made him feel like he was in slow motion while the world sped up. It made him giggle until he hit a wall and the flashing lights cut through him like long knives in rainbow hues.

"Fuck," he said to no one in particular, just enjoying the anger in the word. And he _was angry, he realized. "Fuck!" he said a little louder, and slammed a fist into the wall behind him. "__Fuck Chloe, stupid __bitch. __Fuck Hawk, stupid __bitch." He laughed at his own cleverness. "__Fuck Hartfield, and his __fucking little boys…" Red-haired clown-faced pretty thing he could swear he remembered from somewhere… Shark wasn't good with faces—or names for that matter, so why did that face, dead white face with bright green eyes that even the lighting couldn't dim, why did it stick with him? _

"Fuck the cocksucker," he decided and pushed off the wall, groping for the door he knew was around here someplace. He'd pee in the alley like a fucking _man. Antonio would let him back in. _

He wrenched the door open and stumbled onto the street where a slant of orange light from the front of the alley turned everything a uniform gray color. He took a deep breath of air so cold it cut his lungs and decided he was fucking brilliant, sometimes. 

It was difficult to navigate a straight line to the dumpster, but once he was there he braced himself in the corner between it and the wall, unzipped his pants and got down to business. 

"Shark." 

He yelped and jerked around, piss jumping back up his dick and staying there as muscles clenched. 

There was the pretty painted boy, leaning against the wall casually with arms folded, watching him with eyes as green as summer grass Shark barely remembered. Shark knew, somewhere inside, that the drugs had seriously fucked with his head. But he also knew with a kind of obscure certainty that the boy hadn't been anywhere in the alley moments before. 

His face was still familiar, and growing sharper with each moment. 

"Fuck, man!" Shark snapped, suddenly nervous. "You a pervert or something? Jesus. I'm busy here." 

The boy raised an eyebrow. "I can see that." 

Shark opened his mouth to retort, but found he had nothing to say that was more important than emptying his bladder, so he turned around and went back to doing just that. 

That's when he had his legs cut out from under him. Literally. 

Shark hit the ground screaming, brain suddenly so full of pain that all he could really feel was the wet of his own blood soaking into his pants. The kid grabbed his hair, wrenched him around like he weighed nothing and put his face right into Shark's until he drowned in green eyes. 

"Do you know me, Shark?" the kid asked quietly. Something gleamed in his right hand like a slice of night, but Shark didn't get a good look at it before it was tucked under his chin. It felt like a knife colder than the air, sharper than a razor. 

"No! Fuck no, man! What did you do to me? Fuck!" he managed, terror and pain fighting for dominance in his head. 

"I hamstringed you," the kid said calmly, and the knife flickered before Shark's eyes. It was hard to see against the backdrop because it looked like black crystal bleeding into diamond around the edges, and it blended with the darkness almost seamlessly but for the toothy gleaming. "Do you know me?" 

"No!" 

Calmly, the kid used the knife to draw a bloody line down one of Shark's cheeks. "Do you know me?" 

"Fuck you!" 

Another slash. "Do you know me?" 

"Jesus Mary Joseph Peter…" 

Another. "Do you know me?" 

Drug low or blood loss, Shark didn't know, but suddenly there wasn't any defiance left, wasn't anything but gibbering terror and a little boy crying in the dark. He was sobbing and shaking his head slowly back and forth and he knew there would be no mercy from those remorseless eyes. 

"Is this about Hartfield? What? Is that what this is about?" he asked, hating the whine in his voice. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I left you with him. I would've helped, you know, but I-I'm no one, nobody, please…" He flinched as the knife flashed again. "He does it to everybody!" he screamed. "He did it to me, he does it to everybody!" 

Something changed in the air. Shark could feel it, and when he dared an open eye to look, he could see it. Something in the kid had gentled. Shark felt the buddings of hope. The kid's fingers were soft as they traced his eyebrow and slid back into his hair. Shark smiled. Hey, the kid was pretty hot. He wouldn't mind…wouldn't mind…Everything would be alright now. 

The kid leaned in, close enough to kiss. Shark focused on black-painted lips. "It wasn't Hartfield who raped me," the lips said. 

Shark began to shake, because, suddenly, the kid's face slammed hard into a memory, a deep memory, and submerged. "No. No no no no no…" He heard someone whimpering, becoming only vaguely aware that it was his own voice. 

Then the kid did kiss him, soft lips on his forehead like a benediction. Over the kid's shoulder, blacker against the black alleyway, Shark saw a great bird flying toward them on silent air. 

~*~ 

Kuwabara stepped onto the crime scene wishing for stronger coffee. He tossed the motor oil the local coffee shop was passing off for coffee into the drain and chucked the cup into the nearest trash bin, showed his badge to the uniformed officer controlling the crowd and ducked under the yellow tape. With a quick look around to get his bearings as he walked down the alley, he stepped up to a lieutenant who was snapping pictures of a body. It had been a young-ish man, dressed in clubbing clothes—lots of black leather and metal studs. 

"Who am I looking at?" he asked. 

"Uh…" the lieutenant flipped through his notes. "Rutsuko 'The Shark' Asaki." 

Kuwabara studied the corpse, which was leaning up against a green metal trash bin like a cast-aside puppet with cut strings: legs spread, arms hanging, chin propped on chest. 

"Gang connections?" 

"Some. Mostly with the mob, though." 

"Witnesses?" 

"The kids who found the body and the owner of the club, but time of death is estimated approximately midnight last night and all the patrons are gone by now. The club doesn't keep records of who comes and goes but the owner said he'd give us the names of the regulars." 

Kuwabara nodded, his eyes landing on a marked article beside the body. He frowned. "What's this?" 

"Well, we're not quite sure, sir." 

"I hope you can shed some light on this one for me, Kuwabara-san," Tekko said as she stepped up behind him. Kuwabara straightened and looked at her, rubbing a hand through his hair. 

"I don't see how, Tekko-san," he said, honestly confused. "I mean, besides my natural brilliance," he grinned and she grinned back, "I don't really see why you called me in to look at this." He tilted his head. "Unless I'm missing something…?" 

Tekko gave a sharp "look at this" nod and crouched down beside the body. With a latex-gloved hand, she lifted the victim's chin until his face was visible. Kuwabara gave a grunt of surprise. 

With thin, expert cuts, someone had carved a rather detailed picture of a bird on Shark's face, its head resting between his eyebrows, its wings spread along his cheeks. 

"Ritualistic cutting," he concluded. "Yeah, I can see where you might want my help. But…the pattern is not the same." 

"No," Tekko agreed, standing and snapping her gloves off. "And there are no obvious signs of rape or torture." She sighed. "Of course, we won't be certain about that until we get the autopsy results." 

"Then why—" 

"Your current case isn't why I brought you here," she said, and gave him a look that set off his alarm bells. It was a cross between determination and apology. "It's…because of your history." 

"My history?" 

"The victim was strangled to death." 

Kuwabara felt cold knot in his chest. 

"And he was one of the prime suspects in a double homicide six years ago." 

"Shit," Kuwabara snarled, clenching his teeth and turning away from the body. "I thought his name sounded familiar." He glared at the labeled article on the ground, three pieces of what looked to be obsidian which, if put together, might have formed some sort of blade. 

Tekko took a step toward him. "Kuwabara-san, I'm sorry. But…I thought you'd like to know before you heard the rumors on the grape vine. And besides, this is the reason you became a police officer…" she let the sentence trail off into a question. 

"There were other reasons," he muttered. "What's this, then?" He pointed to the shards on the ground. "You said the victim was strangled…?" 

"Yes." Tekko's lips pursed. "But it also looks like he was hamstringed. And the cuts…maybe ritualistic cuts require a ritualistic dagger?" 

"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed and crouched to spread his hand over it, palm down, trying to measure its breadth. "But don't you think it's a little odd—" Hot flash of youki hit his palm and spread through his system. He cursed and clenched his hand, standing up hastily. 

"Kuwabara-san?" Tekko's light touch on his elbow steadied him. 

He pressed his fingers to his eyes and shook the aftershocks away. "Nothing. It's nothing." He began moving because he had to, walking away from the body quickly, back toward his car. "Listen, I'll talk to you later," he spoke over his shoulder to Tekko's bewildered and slightly worried expression. "Bring me all the information you've got on this. I'll help." 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her relieved smile. "Thanks, Kuwabara-san." 

"Yeah," he muttered, still feeling the burn of demon presence in his arm. "Don't mention it." 

Kuwabara sat on his couch and did what he always did when he needed to find Botan quickly. 

He thought loudly and in great detail about seeing her naked. 

"KUWABARA YOU _PERVERT!" she shrieked as she popped into existence. She hopped off her hovering oar to greet him with her customary sharp blow to the head. _

He rubbed the sore spot and gave her a rueful grin. "Hey, ferrygirl." 

"Hmph," she said, though her violet eyes twinkled. 

"I need to get to the Makai," he said. 

"Sure, Kuwa-chan!" she chirped, all flowers and dimples and blue bobbing ponytail. "I can take a break from my extremely important and busy work to be your personal taxi!" 

He rolled his eyes. "It's _important," he said seriously. _

"Okay," she said. She was still flowers and dimples, but she seemed to accept the gravity Kuwabara was trying to convey. "Anywhere in particular?" 

"The Second Kingdom." 

She blinked at him. "I thought you said you were being serious!" 

"I _am!" _

"It must be_ really serious," she said quietly, eyes wide. _

"It is." 

She gave him a worried look. 

"I think." 

The look turned slightly skeptical. 

"Listen, it's _serious. Just take me there, please?" And he gave her his best kicked puppy look. _

She sighed. "All right. But I don't have time to wait around for a hasty escape. What happens if you need to get out quick?" 

"I call Yuusuke?" 

"Let's _get Yuusuke," she said decisively. "So he'll already be there as backup." That said, she hopped onto her oar and held out a hand to help him on. _

"I can handle Hiei, you know," he grumbled as he clamored up. 

"I know," she said in a tone of voice that meant she knew he was lying, but didn't think any less of him because of it. "But it's better to be safe than sorry." 

~*~ 

The day, Kurama found, was meant for rest. He'd half-expected to be burned into ash when the sun touched his face, but instead he'd almost fallen over when the draw of his quest dropped its towlines and left him staring up at the pale sky, making pictures out of clouds. 

_Nighttime is the time of the murderer, the thief, the criminal, and the Crow, said Kuronue's voice, still reciting rules. __We do not disturb the day. _

He heard the beating of wings. "That one looks like a kitsune who's chasing his tail." 

Kuronue's lanky form dropped down next to Kurama. 

"Kitsune don't chase their tails," Kurama said, smiling slightly. 

"They have so many," Kuronue said, laughing. "They'd likely get lost." 

Kurama closed his eyes and turned his face into the light. "Kitsune don't get lost." 

"No?" 

Kurama looked at his companion, and Kuronue looked back, one eye hidden in the shadow of his cocked hat. Kurama broke eye contact first. Looking down, he studied the toes of his new boots, and then the city below him. There was little to see, though. He was on the edge, where trees still grew of their own inclination and it was quiet here. 

"What is wrong with me?" he asked. 

"Wrong with you?" 

Kurama looked at his own hands and thought about last night, when he'd summoned the powers he'd always used so easily and had been answered by something completely different. 

"You are not the same person you were in life, Kurama," Kuronue said. 

"Obviously," Kurama snapped, and pushed off the building. 

The long leather coat, slipped from Shark's shoulders as the sun turned the sky, spread out from Kurama's body as he fell, seven stories down, and hit feet first. When broken bones had mended, he stood up. 

He ran. 

Later he would claim he hadn't planned where he was going, but, as he stood in front of his house in the weak December light, he knew he'd come home. 

The house was classic Tokyo suburban: well-kept and well-loved, like a book with edges worn by a tender hand. Kurama felt he could spend all day watching breezes move through the neatly tended flowerbeds.

"Hello?"

He turned and found himself looking at a little old woman, round face creased into a smile, bespectacled eyes twinkling. He bowed hastily, realizing what he must look like, painted face, wearing black and leather that smelled faintly of smoke and alcohol.

"Good morning, grandmother," he greeted, giving her the title respectfully, hoping his politeness would make up for his appearance.

"Good morning young man. Can I help you?"

"Ah, no." He glanced toward the house. "Just…looking."

"I see." She shifted a basket of fruit to her other hand and considered him shrewdly. "Why?"

The question took him by surprise. "Oh, well…I used to live here."

"Ah." She beamed. "I see. Why don't you come in, then?"

He gave her a startled look, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that someone else lived in his house. "Oh…no. I wouldn't want to impose…"

"Nonsense," she scoffed, shuffling forward, up the path toward the door. "I am old and my time is my own."

He trailed after her as if pulled by a leash, until she reached the door and he took the basket from her so she could open it. Then he stepped inside and looked around as she bustled forward.

In the foyer and saw—

—_His mother, dressed in a formal kimono for New Year. She was beautiful, her hair piled neatly on her head, wisps curling around her soft cheeks, framing her smiling eyes as she turned toward him and laughed_—

A strange ache like a newly agitated bruise awakening inside of him as he stared at all the familiar spaces of his home that had become so different. He blinked and forced himself to look away.

The kitchen still smelled like green tea.

He set the basket on the table and let his fingers trail over the shiny red skin of an apple as the fruit blurred into a vague blob.

"I bought this house about a year ago," the woman said, standing on a stool to reach her cupboard. "People tried to talk me out of it. Said it was haunted. Well," she continued, setting two cups on the counter. "I don't know about that. Sometimes, I think I see shadows in the tree outside." She turned to him. "But nothing has hurt me, so I let it be. Did you ever have a problem with ghosts?"

A hot tear turned cold as soon as it hit his hand. Hastily, he wiped his eyes, embarrassed, but when he looked up to see the old woman looking at him with a gentle expression, all he could feel was grief.

"I have to—" He cleared his throat. "Excuse me."

He left the kitchen and headed upstairs, hoping she trusted him enough to let him wander out of her sight. 

In the bathroom, he studied himself in the butter-yellow light, startled to see his own face, unadorned, paint burned away in the sunrise. He decided that without it, he looked truly pathetic: lost, painfully young. He tried to glare, to see if that improved anything, but stopped as soon as he realized it made him look like a petulant child. Well, he decided, at least it got him instant sympathy from mothering types.

He splashed water on his face and stepped away from his reflection.

Something caught his eye as he walked past a bedroom and he turned to see a maple tree outside of a large window—his bedroom, his tree. It made him stop, frozen.

The tree was a skeleton. He took a step forward and balanced on his toes on the threshold, head tilted slightly, listening. But the only sounds in the house were the click and clink of an old woman making tea downstairs.

_No ghosts,_ he thought.

Then a demon moved like dark fire through sleeping branches.

Kurama sprang for the window, had flung it open, and shouted, _"Hiei!"_ before even considering the consequences.

Hiei paused on the edge of a branch that should not have been enough to hold his weight, and turned slowly until their eyes met. Kurama felt the world go still and shrink until it only existed in the places where they stood and in the distance between them.

Hiei spoke first. {_I thought I might find you here._} He reached up and touched a branch above his head. Kurama let the words sink into his mind like drowning candles. {_Even though I've already looked for you here. Even when I knew I'd never see you here again, but I kept waiting for you to come and open the window and welcome me in. Even though I know you're nothing but a memory._}

"I'm here," Kurama said softly. His voice was too heavy for the breeze to carry, but Hiei heard him anyway.

{_Maybe,_} the fire demon conceded, looking to the right, searching the horizon. {_But you're not staying._}

Kurama wanted to close his eyes against the truth, but wouldn't look away, wishing Hiei were close enough to touch.

{_Sometimes, when I ran out of places I thought you might be, I looked for you in shadows, though I knew you hated the dark._} Red eyes like jewels with black-fire depths searched Kurama's soul. {_I think I might have loved you once, but I'll never know for certain, now._}

Then he took to the wind like a broken leaf and vanished in a blur. Kurama pressed his forehead into the window frame and kept watching the empty space he'd left behind. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked the passing seconds hollowly.

"Young man?" the old woman called up the stairs. "Tea's ready!"

Kurama considered his transparent reflection in the windowpane and decided that if anyone saw his eyes, if anyone bothered to look, they'd see nothing of the child his face conveyed. 

Feeling tired, he went to have tea and speak to an old woman of ghosts.

~*~

Kuwabara paced the waiting hall of the Second Kingdom's stronghold uneasily. He'd contemplated sitting only as long as it took him to see that half the provided furniture looked like it might shatter should dust touch its surface and the other half like it was just waiting to ensnare some unsuspecting victim. The wall looked more vicious than a lot of the things he'd seen slinking through the dark corridors, so nonchalant leaning was out, too.

Yuusuke was studying a painting that took up half the high wall, seeming oddly at ease in the strange surroundings. Kuwabara blamed demon heritage and prolonged exposure to the Makai.

He spun as tall, dark red doors at the end of the hall opened, relieved the wait was finally over. He and Yuusuke were standing expectantly, side-by-side, when Mukuro stepped into the hallway and jerked her chin back toward the room beyond, giving them permission to go inside.

"Be quick," she said as they stepped past her, and closed the doors behind them.

Kuwabara and Yuusuke peered into the dim interior. Kuwabara felt unease return, jumpy at the darkness when the room felt large enough to hold just about any sort of monster.

"Hiei?" Yuusuke called, his voice echoing faintly. He took a step forward. A blur collided with him before he could go any further.

"Shit!" Kuwabara snarled, reiken flickering to life. 

But there was little he could do. Yuusuke and his attacker were moving too fast for him to pick out any discernable body parts until the last flash of a sword halted a breath away from Yuusuke's throat, caught firmly between forefinger and thumb. 

"Shit!" Kuwabara said again, this time in exasperation, letting the glowing sword die out.

"Heh," Yuusuke gloated, pushing the blade further from his neck with a smirk.

Hiei grinned back before flicking his sword away and sheathing it. "Good reflexes."

"Fuck," Kuwabara said in disgust. "You two are such morons. Do you _have_ to do that every time you see each other?"

Hiei gave him a cool nod. "I see The Idiot is still flapping his mouth as much as usual."

Kuwabara gritted his teeth. "Nice to see you, too, Shrimp."

Turning away, Hiei disappeared into the darkness. They heard the _click_ and _hiss_ of someone unfastening a bolt and then the room was bathed in the gray light of a cloudy sky as Hiei unshuttered a window almost as tall as the doors. 

"Well," Yuusuke enthused, still grinning, "now that we've all said hello, we won't waste your time."

"Good," Hiei said, looking bored already. He pressed his hand to the window with his back to them and said, "So get to the point."

"Listen, you asshole," Kuwabara growled, taking a step forward to push Hiei's personal space a bit. "It's about Kurama."

Kuwabara blinked as the glass under Hiei's fingertips cracked.

"What about him?" Hiei asked, tone neutral.

"Well…we're not sure yet," Kuwabara admitted. "But one of his—one of the murderers—the suspects got himself killed sometime late last night. Not that I'm complaining, but something they found at the scene was shooting off so much ki I nearly burned myself. Someone's playing vigilante and doing a sloppy job of it. I don't know whether to try and stop the guy or help him along."

"So what do I have to do with it?" Hiei asked.

"I thought it might have been you, at first, but then I realized it wasn't your style."

Hiei turned slightly, presenting his profile. "Not my style?"

"Yeah, the guy wasn't, like, in twenty-four pieces strewn across the ground."

Hiei turned to face them then, and grinned a bit before he caught himself. "So I ask again, what do I have to do with this?"

"We figured," Yuusuke took over the conversation, "that if anyone knew who it was, or could at least point us in the right direction, it would be you."

Hiei remained silent, but in a way that said he was considering his response and not just about to blow them off. "All right," he said finally. "Because we have been allies—"

"And friends," Yuusuke interjected.

Hiei rolled his eyes. "And friends, I will be honest with you now." He slanted them a look. "It was Kurama."

There was silence.

"What?" Kuwabara choked out, finally. "As in…Kurama? As in…_Kurama._"

"As in back-from-the-dead kind of Kurama?" Yuusuke clarified.

Hiei frowned. "I don't see how you can be so surprised. Did you listen to nothing Genkai said?"

"Said?" Yuusuke retorted. "She didn't _say_ anything. She just spouted that mystic shit—'You can't understand me, I'm ancient and wise and speak only in cryptic riddles, blah blah blah…'"

"She said Kurama was back," Kuwabara remembered.

"And you believe her?" Yuusuke asked Hiei incredulously.

"I believe most things Genkai says," Hiei replied evenly. "You've been her student. Has she ever lied to you?"

"No," Yuusuke agreed. "But sometimes she doesn't speak straight. For all I know the 'Kurama is back' line could've been some wizened mentor code for 'the end is near' or 'pea green will be the new spring color' or 'does this robe make me look fat?'"

Hiei didn't smile. "She was being literal."

Yuusuke let that sink in. "Whoa," he said finally. "No shit?"

Hiei showed fang in a little grin. "No shit."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Kuwabara demanded happily. "Let's go find him!"

He hadn't taken two steps toward the door when Hiei said, "It isn't that easy."

Kuwabara deflated. "Of course it isn't," he muttered.

"Why isn't it that easy?" Yuusuke asked.

Hiei scowled. "Because it just _isn't._"

Somewhere, a gong sounded, deep enough to make the floor vibrate and the windows rattle.

"Your time is up," the fire demon declared briskly. "I have things to do." 

Kuwabara blinked as Hiei vanished from the window, and then spun around as he spoke from the doorway where he had paused, red eyes strangely sad.

"Just…leave Kurama alone," he said. "He isn't one of us anymore." Then he was gone.

"Fuck," Yuusuke said, the room echoing his frustration back.

Kuwabara rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. "Now what?"

Yuusuke seemed to think about it for a minute, hands on hips, gaze searching the bleak landscape outside the window. Finally, he turned back to Kuwabara, eyes narrowed with determination. "Let's go talk to Genkai."

~*~

Kurama walked down darkening streets, letting the shadows lengthen on his body. Humanity bustled around him and through him—the murmur of outsider thoughts as he brushed an arm, flash of emotion as he bumped against a chest.

Passing a bar, a girl who didn't look old enough to be as drunk as she was reached up and kissed him, thinking—

—_looks like someone famous, I wonder—_

He grinned a bit, like a movie star, and she blushed and giggled as her friends swept her away, apologizing. He watched them until his smile faded. 

Above his head, decorative ferns hung in clay pots. Reaching up, he touched a pale green leaf, delicate as glass, and called it to grow. Instead of flourishing under his touch, black climbed up the leaf like hungry frost, glittering, and when Kurama jerked his hand away, the affected piece broke off and hit the ground with the sound of crystal.

He stared at it until the sound of wings brought his head up. Over the city flew a crow, bringing in the night. Kurama followed it.

The bird brought him to a hotel that looked fancy in a distinctly Western way—all gold gilded and red-carpeted, everything shining like money. Kurama considered the building indifferently, leaning against the bars of the gated entrance, wondering how long it would take before the guard shooed him away for loitering. Wondered how he was supposed to keep a low profile this time.

"Hey, kid."

Kurama froze. The guard. That hadn't taken long at all. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to look unobtrusive as he edged away from the gate.

"You know the routine. Clientele through the side door."

Well, that was different. Kurama looked at the indicated building, a small structure that might have been a security point or even another guardhouse, except that it had no windows. Trying not to let his confusion show, Kurama walked to it and opened the door, revealing a flight of steps down into the ground, lit by electric torches.

"Thanks," he said, suppressing a grin, and started down.

Totemo Satoru scowled as a large black bird landed on the hood of his car. He opened the door, stepped out into the street and waved his arm to shoo it.

"Oi, bird! Get away from there!"

The creature turned its small head and regarded him coolly with oil-drop eyes. Then, with a cackle that sounded surprisingly like a real laughter, it lifted its wings and took off. Totemo ran his hand over the paint to check for scratches, scowling, then tossed his keys to the valet who jogged up.

The interior of the hotel was pleasantly warm, and he peeled off his gloves as he went. The concierge stepped out from behind the front desk to bow and silently hand him a keycard, which he accepted with a little grin and tucked into his coat pocket.

In the elevator ride up to the twenty-second floor, he listened to some Christmas classic gutted and reduced to muzak and checked out the porter's ass. Whistling Jingle Bells, he stepped out of the elevator and walked down a hallway that was wallpapered with some striped tan and green design he'd always hated, his expensive shoes making little noise on the brown carpet. When he reached room 435, he slipped the cardkey into the allotted slot and pushed the door open when the light turned green.

The lights were already on when he entered. The walls were beige, the carpet some strange mauve-like color. Most of the room was dominated by a king sized bed that had a dark mahogany headboard, silver and blue quilted cover, and a huddled naked form curled up near the pillows.

Totemo surveyed the boy, or what he could see of him, as he took off his coat and tossed it on a chair. The boy flinched away from the sudden movement, and Totemo cursed under his breath, rooting through his suit jacket for his pack of cigarettes. He really hated it when they gave him these cowering weaklings who did nothing but mewl pitifully all night.

"Stand up," he snarled as he pulled out his pack and tapped out a cigarette. The boy shivered but didn't move. He put the cigarette in his mouth and slapped the pack down on the table impatiently. "I said stand up, you little whore. I want to see you."

His search for a lighter came up empty. Frustrated, he took a step for the bed and reached out—

Only to be jerked up short and spun around, lighter flame touching the end of his cigarette and his gasp of surprise filling his mouth with smoke and he coughed. The cigarette hit the floor and smoldered.

"You could start a fire that way," the new kid said mildly, letting the lighter in his hand flicker and die out.

"Yeah," he muttered. Then lashed out and slapped the kid across the face, hard enough to whip his head around. "Don't you _fucking_ do that ever again, you understand me?" he snarled, and pulled a gun. "Where the fuck did you come from?"

The kid only straightened and considered him silently, green eyes burning out from the black makeup marking his painted white face. Something flickered in the back of Totemo's mind, a brief memory at the lines of black traced on the kid's face.

"Who sent you?" he questioned, stepping closer and menacing with the weapon, feeling danger prickle against his skin like electricity.

"No one," was the calm reply.

"Fuck that." Out of the corner of his eye, something silver gleamed—

And he saw it in slow motion flashback, the kid lighting his cigarette. The silver Zippo lighter with the initials S.H. scrolled on the side, the initials of the original owner, some poor shmuck Shark had—

Shark.

Shark, who was dead at the hands of some psycho.

He screamed and pulled the trigger.

Only, suddenly, he was neither screaming nor shooting, the gun somewhere under the bed, unfired, and him up against a wall with the kid's hands, fucking strong hands, around his throat, and green eyes, cool like a doctor's—clinically detached—studying him from an inch away.

His gun was gone but his hands were free and he went for the eyes.

But instead he hit another wall, hard, and landed on the hotel-provided desk, bruising his ribs on complimentary pens.

"Shit," he said because, really, that's what this whole situation had become, and scrambled to regain his feet.

The kid grabbed his shirt and hauled him up until he stood on his tiptoes. The kid was really a lot taller than he first seemed, slender body disguised in swirls of black leather trench coat. Red hair catching highlights. Green eyes…

"You," Totemo whispered, disbelieving. "You can't be here."

"Why?" The kid put a hand to Totemo's ear and yanked. He screamed as the small loop earring ripped through his skin and dropped into the kid's palm. "Because the dead cannot walk?"

"No," he said shakily, clutching his head, feeling blood seep between his fingers. "No, because it took too long. You died so long ago. They said we were safe. They said we were safe!"

The kid tossed him again. He hit the bed, slid right over the edge and ended up awkwardly upside down on the other side, neck bent at a painful angle.

"They lied," he heard the kid say.

He scrambled, then. Crawled when nothing seemed coordinated enough to get him moving. Whimpering in the back of his throat because he knew. He knew there was no stopping that thing in a boy's body. The painted devil. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone and his thumb hit speed dial.

"He's here!" Totemo screamed. That was all he managed to say.

Kurama plucked a rose out of the complimentary vase of flowers and let his power flow, listened to the flower die as it crystallized in his hand, then set it down carefully next to the body, beside the lily leaf he'd used as a knife. These black, dead creations his youki formed now seemed to grow brittle as soon as they were out of his hands. The leaf had shattered when it had hit the ground. He carefully didn't touch it. Was afraid to touch anything.

He didn't jump when the cell phone began to chirp hollowly, but it was a near thing. He glanced at the number and then ignored it.

"It might be for you," said a voice behind him.

Kurama turned and stared at the naked, collared boy on the bed. He had spiky near-white hair that was darker at the roots, and brown eyes that twinkled as he grinned suddenly and slid off the bed.

"I did that cowering-in-fear thing pretty well, huh?" he asked cheerfully, stretching like a cat and completely comfortable without clothing.

Kurama felt bemusement turn his lips slightly as the kid walked forward and stepped carefully around a puddle of blood to observe the body.

"Hum. Aren't Crow deaths supposed to be messy and dramatic or something?" 

Kurama blinked. "The arterial spray wasn't dramatic enough for you?" 

"Well," the kid grinned in his direction. "That _was pretty cool. But I think the whole dying thing is supposed to last longer. _

"I don't work that way." 

Kurama looked out the window and saw a sheen of wings as the crow flew past. In his head, he could hear triumphant laughter. It made him restless. 

"Oh come on!" the kid scoffed. "At least shoot him a couple times or something." 

"You want to shoot him," Kurama said, retrieving the gun and holding it out, "be my guest." 

"Gah!" The kid batted at it like an angry kitten. "No way, don't give that thing to me! I've got fingerprints they could trace all the way to America. Bet that's not a problem for you, huh? Or is it? Do dead guys have fingerprints?" 

Kurama shrugged and dropped the gun again, then stopped and turned to pin the boy with a look. The boy was searching for something below the bed, and didn't notice. "How do you…?" 

"Know about Crows?" the kid finished, pulling back from under the bed with a handful of clothing. "In my line of work, it's bound to happen at least once. I was just there at the right time." He tugged on a pair of low-riding jeans. "Seki was dead, and then he wasn't, and then he was again." He pulled his shirt over his head. "And a lot of nasty people died while he wasn't. Can you help me find my other shoe? It looks like this." He held up a black sneaker. 

Kurama let his eyes wander the room. "Over there." He nodded to the dark space under the desk. 

"How the hell? Oh well." The kid crawled under desk and retrieved it. 

This was not a conversation Kurama had ever imagined having, and he was not quite sure how to get out of it gracefully. "Do you have someplace to…go?" 

"Nah. But I'll find something." The kid finished tying his shoes and stood up. "Oh, hey. Rudeness on my part." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Jiro." 

Kurama looked at the outstretched fingers and the warm smile and thought of the heart-stopping jolt whenever he touched anyone, like getting hit by lightning with memories attached. He reached out and bypassed the hand, clasping the boy's clothed elbow briefly. 

"Kurama." 

Strange, so strange to see past the smiling exterior, to see the tear-streaked child underneath like a double exposed picture. Though there was still something hopeful, bright like a star and warm like candlelight, lighting both faces. 

He blinked and it was gone. 

"Eh. I forgot about that," Jiro said apologetically as he pulled away. "The No Touching rule. It must get lonely, though." 

"I'm never alone." 

"If you say so." The boy's eyes drifted back down to the body. "Ick. We'd better get going. The blood is starting to congeal." 

"I'll get you out." 

"You don't have to." 

"I'll do it anyway." 

"And who am I to argue with that sort of determination?" Jiro quirked a grin at him. "Lead on, vigilante." 

Kurama moved, leading the way out of the room, his senses stretching outward. And that was strange—his focus felt scattered, like broken ice floating on a current. He'd become so used to his purpose driving him that this felt like…drifting. 

Or searching. 

He stopped in the middle of the hallway. 

_—And saw himself, in his old school uniform—that hideous fuchsia color Yuusuke had teased him mercilessly about—smiling politely, curiosity tilting his head. _

_Feeling warm and sudden shyness, dropping his gaze to his shoes—the good ones—he knew because they pinched his feet— _

_Wondering idly if it had really just been instantaneous hero worship like he'd thought back then, or his first crush—_

"Hey." 

Kurama jerked in surprise when Jiro's hand settled on his shoulder, falling back to reality enough to realize that he wasn't seeing his own memories. But who in this building would know him well enough to picture him as clear as a movie moment on a continuous loop? 

"You planning on getting a room, or something?" the boy questioned, nervousness in his voice pulling Kurama away from his speculations. 

He came out of the memory and found himself staring raptly at door 421 like he was waiting for it to open up and reveal its secrets to him. 

Then it was opening, because he was pushing it, the lock giving away with the loud crunch of expensive wood, and he tried not to look too closely at the two bodies twined on the bed, one large and aggressive one smaller and passive, sweat and hard breathing and a short, startled yelp as Kurama grabbed the hair of the bigger one and yanked. 

He stared into dazed, almond-shaped eyes as his fingers struggled to hold the short strands, nails scooping sweat and suddenly, it was all— 

—_rage— _

—for this dirty, piggish excuse for a human who thought power was enough reason to justify his actions and money a great enough shield to save him. 

—_rage— _

That he might he right. He just might be right. So then it was— 

—_joy— _

As he smashed that sallow-skinned forehead into the headboard. 

—_joy— _

When he tossed the lumpy body across the room, pulling out a handful of hair simultaneously. The man shrieked—a razor on glass—until he hit the wall with the same sound the door made, but wetter. 

Then he breathed. Kurama breathed and tried to remember why he couldn't kill the whimpering creature where he lay. 

The touch on his hand was painfully euphoric, like slitting his wrists, dancing on coals, twining lightning in his fingers, turning him around inevitably, pulling him down toward features sharp, handsome and hollow—a face he remembered from other days when it had been younger, sweeter, and he'd been alive. 

A cool hand cupped his cheek and felt like fever. 

Lips moved almost against his own in words that he heard mostly in his head. 

"I dreamed you here." 

Then he was released and Kurama jumped off the bed, landing on the balls of his feet, tension wiring him. The sound of flesh and flesh meeting violently turned him around to see Jiro poised over the sallow man, clasped fists brandished high to strike again. He looked over as if he felt Kurama's gaze and offered a rueful smile, hard at the edges. 

"Sorry. He was getting uppity, but I think he knows better, now." He dropped his hands and approached carefully. "Are you planning on saving everybody?" 

"No," Kurama said, watching as Jiro reached out and brushed the brownish-red hair off the unconscious boy's forehead. 

"Drugged," Jiro reported. 

"Do you know him?" 

"Yeah. Shuichi. Stubborn—hates it here—but nice. Sad." 

Kurama felt something hot close his throat. "I know him, too." 

Jiro looked at him, surprised. "How?" 

"He's my brother." 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Not Mine. (For a more extensive disclaimer, see Chapter 1)

Chapter summary: The moonlight was silver on black wings, and suddenly, silver was a sound—the highest violin string screaming once. Kurama jerked his head up as his heartbeat sent a ripple through his body, as if his blood were changing over into something thicker. The humans were still arguing. The crow was laughing, softly. 

-Chapter 3-

Shizuru felt the ghost's presence like a winter wind—chilling but familiar—and decided that despite her brother's adamant "no smoking" rule she really needed a cigarette. So she lit one as she went looking for him, and was exhaling her first mouthful of smoke when she found him. It hadn't been like he'd been trying to hide. 

The dead man was standing in her brother's living room, black leather and gothic face paint, and an almost lost expression that kicked forward her latent mothering instinct she harbored for all of Kazuma's strange but well-meaning friends. 

"Kurama," she said gently, and he turned to her with wide, questioning eyes. "He isn't here," she answered what she thought the most prominent question and got a blank look in response. "Kazuma," she clarified. "You know, my stupid brother. With the loud mouth. And the bad hair." Still nothing. "Kurama?" 

She took a step toward him and stopped, unsure. Fuck, it was too early in the morning to be dealing with this crap. The sun wasn't even up. The morning scum hadn't had the chance to settle on her teeth. What was the proper etiquette for dealing with someone who'd, last she'd checked, been six feet under making nice and food-like with the local worm population? 

"You want some coffee or something?" she offered finally. "He'll be home soon." Without waiting for a response, she moved to the kitchen and stubbed out her cigarette in the sink. 

His footsteps were slipper-shod quiet despite the heavy boots he wore. "Where is he?" 

She felt something twist inside at the almost-forgotten sound of his voice, something so fierce, it surprised her. "Work," she answered steadily, blaming her shaking hand on early-morning caffeine deficiency. "Got called in." 

"When will he be back?" 

"Damned if I know. I don't keep tabs." 

"I need to talk to him." 

"Get in line," she said and concentrated on measuring water. "He'll be back eventually. Relax 'til then. Have some coffee. You _can still drink coffee, can't you?" She finally looked back at him, and found him with his face upturned to the window and the rising sun, paint fading away by increments, as if the light unmade it. _

He was smiling, small, content upturn of lips, and she felt like smiling back, even though he wasn't looking at her. 

Then she saw the twined forms ensconced on her brother's couch. "Uh…Kurama?" 

Kurama turned at her question and followed her line of sight. "Why I need to talk to Kuwabara," he answered. 

She gave him a narrow look at the casual tone. At the very least, she thought he should sound apologetic, but his expression was neutral. She raised an eyebrow. He cracked a smile and ducked his head a bit sheepishly. 

"All right, then," she said forgivingly. "I'll bet they'll be hungry when they wake up." 

He tilted his head and looked up at her through his lashes. She rolled her eyes. "Save that look for someone you haven't already wrapped around your little finger, twit." She swatted at him. "Go start the rice. I'll get the eggs." 

~*~ 

Kuwabara drank his coffee with tired determination and decided a little professional whining was what this situation called for. 

"I fucking hate early morning calls," he grumbled as he ducked under the yellow tape. 

"Have you even been home, yet?" Tekko asked as she followed him through. 

"For about an hour." 

She patted his shoulder consolingly, and then moved past him to survey the site. Kuwabara looked around casually, feeling the detached disinterest of exhaustion setting in. His eyes wandered over the scattered pens on the desk, the skewed sheets on the bed, the spray of blood across the carpet. 

Kuwabara stopped and stared a little harder at the blood. He took a sip of his coffee. He tilted his head and squinted a bit. 

"Tekko-san," he called. 

She looked up from where she'd been inspecting the black rose on the ground next to the body, then straightened so she could see the floor from his angle. 

"Oh my…" she began. 

Kuwabara took another sip of coffee, still staring at the pattern in the spread of blood that arced out across the carpet from the victim's slit throat. "Does that look like…wings to you?" 

Hiei and Genkai stood in the same length of pale sunlight that spilled out across the well-worn wooden floor of the shrine, holding to silence so deep that the light scrape of Hiei's soft boots as he turned to look at her was like a mountain crumbling. 

"You're hiding something," he said. 

Genkai tucked her hands behind her back and looked up at the blue sky above her. "You put a hole in my ceiling," she answered. 

"I needed a dramatic entrance," Hiei deadpanned. 

Genkai raised an eyebrow, and curved a corner of her lips upward. "Well done, then." She presented her back, and Hiei felt his fingers twitch toward his sword. But she called him over her shoulder, "Let's walk," she said. So he fell into step beside her. 

Outside, they tread down a path made of white stones that feathered its way through a perfectly kept garden full of pruned trees and delicate blossoms just opening to the new day. Hiei had once known someone who would have known the names for every plant he saw, who would have told the fire demon about them all, while Hiei pretended not to listen. Now he brushed past the groomed trees and held back a desire to rip out leaves, just to create a little chaos. 

"Have you seen him?" the old priestess asked. 

He didn't bother pretending not to know who she asked about. "Yes." 

"Did you speak to him?" 

"Yes." 

Genkai paused where dappled light scattered across her face and made her look younger. "Did he answer?" 

Hiei stopped where the shadow was deepest. "The Idiot and your former student came to see me today." 

Genkai was statue-still, and waiting for Hiei to make his point. 

"They asked me about Kurama." He spoke the name without a hitch. It had taken years of practice to manage that. "I told them to leave him alone because he wasn't of this world any longer. Because there was no way to save him." 

Genkai reached up and pulled a purple flower that looked like an unpeeling wine glass off a low branch and her expression revealed nothing. 

"I was bluffing out of my ass." 

She put the flower to her nose, but he thought she might have done it to cover a smirk. 

Frustration made his tongue unwise. "I thought you might know something more about it, old witch." 

Outwardly unperturbed, she tucked the flower behind her ear and said, "Well, since you asked so politely…" But she said nothing else, and instead turned to head back to the shrine. 

Hiei gritted his teeth. "I am prepared to go to Koenma." 

Genkai spun toward him quickly enough to make white stones scatter. "He will not help you." 

"Why?" he demanded. 

Her mouth opened, and then closed again. She shook her head, hunched her shoulders slightly, and continued up the path. He could have caught up, or been ahead of her, even run to Tokyo and back before she crossed the threshold, but it seemed pointless. If Genkai would not say anything, he doubted he could force her to speak. 

"Do you hate Kurama so much?" 

She stopped. "No." She turned, and her eyes showed him truth. "No." 

"I don't understand," he said honestly. 

She sighed, focus fading off to a point over his shoulder. "It is said that, sometimes, when a spirit dies in turmoil, bound to its former life by hate and violence, it cannot travel to the Reikai and instead remains in the Ningenkai to seek vengeance for the wrongs committed against it." 

Hiei considered this, and felt Genkai's gaze as it returned to him. "I know of ghosts, old one. But he moves…travels, walks through this world like a living person. Ghosts always need an anchor—often a building, or an object of some sort." 

Genkai held her hands up, thumbs crossed and fingers spread like wings. "He has one." Her hands flicked at him, and the shadow of a great bird rippled over the stones toward his feet, sharp avian cry bouncing against trees. He jerked his eyes upward, but saw nothing. "A crow." 

"Death's harbinger," he muttered. 

"Yes," she said, and folded her hands into her long sleeves, hiding them. 

Hiei looked at his feet, trying to grind his mental process to a halt, but eventually, he had to state the obvious conclusion. "So he is dead." 

A sweet, vaguely echoing voice answered. "Mostly!" 

The fire demon took a half-step back as Botan _poofed into existence before him atop her floating oar, blue ponytail swinging and smile merry as ever. _

Genkai raised an eyebrow at the ferrygirl. "Botan, what are you doing here?" 

"Um…gossiping?" She beamed at the old priestess. 

Hiei gave Botan a sharp look to recapture her attention. "Mostly," he reemphasized. 

The girl tilted her head and tapped her chin with a finger. "Well…technically, his soul still hasn't reported to the Reikai. So there's no official documented proof that he's dead." 

"But…his body was buried…" 

She sniffed. "Silly! You know as well as I do that bodies are nothing more than vessels for the soul—and Kurama's…'vessel' seems to be up and looking as well as ever." Then she blinked and paused, looking troubled. "It's very odd, actually. This sort of thing has happened before, and usually the soul reports to the Reikai first and then gets summoned back to the Ningenkai by the crow. But something went wrong this time." 

Hiei frowned. "Hmph. Figures. Can't Koenma tie his own _shoes without help?" _

"Hey!" Botan swatted at him. "It's not his fault! The Reikai has nothing to do with it." 

Hiei blinked. "What?" 

Botan shrugged and reiterated. "The Reikai doesn't have anything to do with the crows. Never have." 

"Then who sends them?" 

"Don't know. They drive Koenma-sama crazy every time they show up, though. It plays havoc on his paperwork." 

Hiei rolled his eyes. "I'll bet." 

"You said something went wrong," Genkai said. "Do you have any idea what?" 

Botan shook her head. "The only way a ghost can avoid going to the Reikai is to tie itself to a place or object in the Ningenkai, and I even exercised Kurama's old house so—" 

"You exercised _Kurama?" Hiei demanded. _

"No! Well…yes, I guess so. But," Botan hastened to explain, "I didn't know it was him at the time. The whole house gave off this strange aura. Besides, it shouldn't have _hurt him—or kept him from the Reikai." _

The three exchanged a silence. 

"I'm going to check out his house again," Hiei declared, and vanished like a blur of black static. 

Botan let out a breath and slumped on her oar, drawing a shrewd look from Genkai. 

"Were you authorized to tell him that?" she questioned. 

"Authorized to tell him what?" Botan asked with wide-eyed innocence. "I was just having a friendly conversation, and you know me, I just babble about anything when I get carried away, and well I might have let on about some things I shouldn't have, but I'm sure it was all in good faith." 

"Will this get you in trouble?" 

Botan tilted her head. "Does it matter now? Don't worry so much, Genkai-sama." With that, the ferrygirl smiled warmly, and flew off. 

Genkai watched her until she blended with the sky, and then folded her hands and went back to the shrine. 

~*~ 

Kuwabara felt tired right down to the marrow of his bones. He opened his apartment door with clumsy fingers and shuffled inside with only the thought of falling into bed in mind. 

"Morning, Doofus. Welcome home." 

He jerked his head up to see his sister leaning casually against a wall, right next to his framed picture of fruit in a basket that Keiko had painted for him, and felt annoyance dig into his spine. 

"Shizuru. What are you doing here?" 

She swept fine brown hair over her shoulder, somehow managing not to tangle the cigarette in it, and flicked ashes into her coffee cup. His coffee cup. "Oh, there's a fine welcome." 

He looked around to see if there was anything else out of place, and spotted a tangle of limbs on his couch. "Why are there naked people sleeping on my couch?" 

"Don't be such a wuss," she answered and flicked more ash. "Only one of them's naked." 

Unable to think of anything resembling a coherent protest to that remark, he strode across the room and snatched the cigarette out of her hand. "And why the hell are you smoking? You know my rules." He walked past her into the kitchen where a tall redhead stood stirring something in a pot at his stove. "And furthermore—_Kurama?" He did a double take and gaped. _

"Hey, don't look at me," Shizuru said over her shoulder. "He's _your dead friend." _

Kurama looked up and smiled. "Hello, Kuwabara." 

"Kurama…" Kuwabara managed, though his voice was hoarse, and more breath than sound. 

Kurama blinked and tilted his head. "You have a ponytail." 

"What?" Kuwabara asked blankly, hand automatically going back to the nape of his neck where his hair was tied off. "Oh, yeah. Started to grow it out a few years back." 

"I like it." 

"Uh…thanks." 

Kurama picked the pot up off the stove and began to measure out portions of some white goop into four small rice bowls. When the cigarette still dangling in his hand burnt so low it singed his fingers, Kuwabara snapped out of his daze enough to toss it into the sink and wash it down the drain. 

"It doesn't look like there's enough for you," Kurama was saying regretfully, standing with spoon poised over the last bowl. "But you can have my share, if you want." 

Kuwabara bypassed the spoon and pot as he stepped in carefully and wrapped his arms around the redhead's waist and tucked his chin into the crook of neck and shoulder. He tried not to feel embarrassed when Kurama did nothing but hold very still. He'd come a long way from the tough street kid who thought liking someone meant you had to beat the crap out of them regularly, but there were still a lot of insecurities undermining his new found maturity. But just when he'd decided to let go, Kurama relaxed into the embrace. He still didn't hug back, but Kuwabara thought it might just be because his hands were occupied. 

Kurama still smelled of green earth and faintly of roses. Kuwabara smiled, relieved. He'd been half afraid to smell death and formaldehyde. 

Someone coughed loudly behind them. Kuwabara turned and found Shizuru, smirking at them. 

"How the hell did you get in here?" he demanded, remembered annoyance returning. "Are you sleeping with the landlord, or something?" 

She raised an eyebrow at him. 

"Oh, ew. Did _not need to know that." _

"Then you shouldn't have asked." 

"It was a rhetorical." 

Renewed bickering stopped abruptly when Kurama tilted his head back and laughed. Kuwabara grinned, stepping back from the hug, and even Shizuru's smile lacked its usual razor edge. Still chuckling, Kurama put the pot in the sink and filled it with water to soak. 

"I'm smiling now," Kuwabara said to the redhead. "But you still owe me serious explanation." 

Kurama turned and nodded. "I understand." Offered up a wry little twist of lips. "Where would you like me to start?" 

Kuwabara rubbed a hand over his hair. "Hell, I don't know." 

"I'm sorry." 

"Aw, it's not your fault. Well—it is, but…y'know." 

"I think so." 

"First off," Kuwabara began. Then stopped and glared at Shizuru until she rolled her eyes at him and wandered off. After he was sure she was gone, he cleared his throat and plunged in. "First off, aren't you…dead?" 

Kurama folded his arms and leaned against the counter. "Yes." 

"Then you'll understand why it's kinda a shock to see you walking around." 

"No more shocking to you than to me. Believe me." 

"All right. I guess that means you didn't go and plan this or nothing." 

"Definitely not." Kurama gave him a sharp look. "Did you think that?" 

"It crossed my mind—briefly. Give me a break, though. You're the guy with the brains, with the plans, and you did it once before." 

"Did what once before?" 

"Dying and getting yourself reborn!" 

"I…" Kurama stopped and gave him a narrow look. "How do you know about that?" 

"Um…I…" Kuwabara shuffled his feet and coughed into his hand. 

"Say that again?" 

"I…read it. In your Reikai file." 

"My—How did you—!" 

"Look, don't get ruffled!" Kuwabara held up his hands. "I—we, Yuusuke and me, were in Koenma's office, and they went off to talk official business or something and it was sitting right there." He felt Kurama's growing anger like an approaching fire demon—-+-slow burn building to a flash fire. "And I was curious, this was before I knew you very well, and it wasn't like I was gonna use any of the information against you or anything. We were on the same side!" 

Anger guttered and snuffed out. Kurama's stance eased, and he smiled again, brittle humor around the edges. "You're right. I'm sorry." 

"Yeah." Kuwabara swallowed. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, since you didn't plan anything anyway. That still doesn't explain what you're doing walking around." 

"As far as I can tell, I've been granted a sort of…extended life." 

"Does Koenma know?" 

"Good question. But, no. I don't think so." 

"Boy, is _he going to be pissed." _

Kurama grinned a bit. "Yeah." 

"But it is you, isn't it? Killing those guys. In the alleyway. In the hotel." 

Kurama's smile faded. "Yeah," he said quietly. 

Kuwabara tried to study Kurama's face, but the other man had bowed his head, obscuring his features. Somewhere outside and below them, he could hear the city slowly coming to life as the morning matured. "Are they the ones?" 

Kurama seemed to close into himself, hugging his elbows in tight, ducking his chin, pulling in from his slightly sprawled stance. "Yes." 

Closing his eyes, Kuwabara took a breath and then let it out again, slowly, but he couldn't keep his fists from clenching, or the anger from closing his throat. "Dammit. We didn't think to look for people—humans. We tried…we couldn't find them, and we tried everything. Everything. Even Hiei. And Yuusuke and even, I think, Koenma just a little. Keiko and me, the human ones, we did our share, though it wasn't much. I mean—I even tried reading minds. Reading minds! Crazy." Presently he felt Kurama's eyes on him, questioning, but he kept pacing and not looking at the open face of a dead man. "We thought it couldn't have been normal people. Not for you, Kurama. But it wasn't like we could tell the police that, you know. 'Hey, this guy couldn't have been taken out by any human Average Joe, no sir. You'd better have a look out for any suspicious paranormal activity in the area.' Could you imagine?" 

"Kuwabara." 

"But we were wrong. Shit. And then Hiei got all quiet. He doesn't really talk at the best of times but he just shut up altogether, except I could still hear him. Hear him screaming, inside, very quietly, where he thought no one could hear. But I did. I was just waiting for him to go off and start a blood bath or something. But, strangest thing, he just disappeared for a while. He's back now. Still won't talk to any of us any more." 

"Kuwabara." 

"There wasn't anything. We looked everywhere. We couldn't even find your _soul." _

"Kuwabara!" 

Kuwabara finally, almost reluctantly, looked up into steady green eyes, and was stopped in his tracks by a depth of emotion he couldn't identify. Kurama reached out a hand, bypassed Kuwabara's shoulder, settled slender fingers on his cheek. Kuwabara jerked, startled by the contact, then nearly shrank away again as he felt his own memories pulling out of him, crashing into the well behind Kurama's eyes, curving back like a wave so he got the barest echo returned. 

Kurama blinked. 

Kuwabara put his hand over Kurama's and held still as the psychic connection settled, set down roots. 

"I understand," Kurama said quietly, and Kuwabara knew it was the truth. 

"The case is still open," he said, much more calmly. "I checked. Been open all this time. Serial killer, they call it. We could still get them—" 

"It's all right," Kurama interrupted gently. "It's all right. I think…that's what I'm here for." 

"To bring them in?" 

"To kill them." He drew back, and Kuwabara let him go. "They have a higher power to answer to, now." 

"I can't really agree with that, you know." 

"I know." 

"And you don't care." 

"Not really." Kurama gave him an apologetic look. "One of the perks of being dead. The laws of the living don't really apply." 

Kuwabara sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah." 

"I'm sorry." 

"'S'all right." His eyes flicked to the couch. "Next question. Who are my other guests? And why are you here? As in 'here' my apartment." 

"I found them at the hotel. They're…prostitutes." 

Kuwabara felt a jolt of surprise, but waited because Kurama seemed to be drawing himself up to say something more. 

"One of them is a colorful character who calls himself Jiro. The other is…my brother." 

"_What?_" 

This response from two sides of the room, in sibling stereo. 

"Shizuru! Have you been listening?" 

"Of course," the older sibling scoffed, waving a dismissive hand as she turned her attention on Kurama. "Kurama, talk sense. What brother? The only family I ever heard about was your mother." 

"This is true," Kurama confirmed. "But just before her…before she died, my mother was engaged to marry a man named Hatanaka Sen, and he had a young son named Shuichi." 

Shizuru raised an eyebrow. "Two Shuichi's? That must have been a pain in the ass." 

"To an extent." 

"But, wait," Kuwabara said. "Is Hatanaka dead?" 

"Not to my knowledge. The last I heard of him, he was a successful partner in the Mayaboshi Company." 

"Then why the hell is his kid mixed up in prostitution?" 

"That's what I would like to find out. Or rather…that's what I would like _you_ to find out. I have Shuichi and Jiro's personal accounts of what happened, and a telephone number." 

"What? Wait—no." 

"Please, Kuwabara." Kurama's voice was low and serious. He radiated a quiet, edgy desperation that made Kuwabara's chest ache. "I—I'm not really supposed to interfere in the problems of the living but…I just can't leave it like this. He's family. Or nearly so. Please." 

Kuwabara knew he was in trouble when he locked eyes with his sister and came within a breath of asking her for a cigarette. Instead, he opened his mouth and what came out was, "Okay." Even though he knew that this was the beginning to something that would end up being more trouble than he'd gotten into in…years. 

His first thought was that he really ought to find Yuusuke, because Urameshi would never forgive him for leaving him out of this one. 

His second was that this just might be fun. 

~*~ 

Yuusuke walked a familiar but long disused route, past walled gardens, down well-worn but well-maintained streets, until he reached a house nestled among flowerbeds and bushes, with a single grand maple tree spreading bare branches outward, taking up most of the lawn on the right side. He wasn't sure what had brought him here, other than angry, aimless wandering. But now that he was here, the house seemed to hold him still, though everything in him wanted to keep moving. 

He shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and rocked back on his heels, straight-legged. Someone was living here again. The flowerbeds were neatly tended, green shoots peaking through dark earth. 

Kurama hadn't been rich. For some reason, Yuusuke had never really noticed that when his friend had been alive. Kurama had always acted elegantly enough it seemed he should've been rolling in money. His mother—warm, tough, smart woman—had kept the house in spotless repair. Compared to Atsuko's frequently-trashed apartment, Kurama's house had seemed rich indeed. 

It was easier to look at, now. Didn't feel quite so empty, or seem quite so haunted. He supposed that was a good thing, though a darker part of Yuusuke demanded the house remain like a monument, a grave marker. But the world kept moving, despite grief and death. He supposed it was just time, and that he should move on as well, before he frightened the house's current occupant by skulking outside for too long. 

He took one last look over the yard, and paused at the tree, where deeper shadows shifted among dead leaves. He sensed Hiei before he saw the demon, and congratulated himself silently for it. 

Hiei blurred out of the bare branches as soon as he realized he'd been spotted, and landed next to Yuusuke like a bolt of lightning, raising the hairs on Yuusuke's arms. 

"What are you doing here?" the half-demon asked curiously. 

"What's it to you?" Hiei returned defensively, scowling. 

"Okay, okay, don't get like that," Yuusuke answered easily, unafraid in the face of Hiei's threat. "I'm just asking. You don't come to the Ningenkai very often any more." 

"I was looking." 

"Yeah? For what?" 

"It's none of your business." 

Yuusuke blew a frustrated breath and rounded on the fire demon. "That is such shit. It's about Kurama, isn't it?" 

Hiei glared at him silently. 

"Why won't you tell us what's going on?" 

"I…can't." 

"You are such an asshole. You and Genkai both. Ch'." Yuusuke turned and began to walk away. 

"I can't tell you because I don't know." 

That quiet statement turned Yuusuke around. "What?" 

"I'm not going to repeat myself." 

"But…what about what you said in the Second Kingdom…?" 

"I was guessing." 

"Guessing—!" 

"But I was right. I've spoken to Genkai." 

"And she _talked to you? Ch'! She all but patted me on the head and told me to go suck my thumb elsewhere." _

Hiei's face resolved into a curious look that Yuusuke might have called embarrassment on anyone else. 

"Hiei?" 

"It wasn't Genkai," the demon muttered. "It was Botan." 

"Botan? What's she got to do with it?" 

Hiei shrugged. 

Yuusuke sighed. "Fine. What did she have to say?" 

"Little of much use. Except…" Hiei stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned to look at Kurama's house. "Something went wrong with his death. He never made it to the Spirit World." 

"We already knew that." 

"Yes. But Botan said something that made me think…maybe it has to do with the house." 

"The house?" 

Yuusuke bit down on an undignified yelp and took a step away as Hiei's power flared in black lightning crackles around his body. 

"Hiei!" 

The fire demon ignored him and clawed one hand, flames lighting between his fingers. He lobbed a casual black-fire ball at the house. Surprise flipped to anger in an instant, and Yuusuke dove in, catching Hiei by his white scarf and pulling him up on his toes. 

"You bastard!" he snarled. "What the hell—" 

The youki attack met with a spirit barrier that hissed like static and resolved into a translucent light blue dome, arcing over the house and yard. Yuusuke's hands loosened. He glanced nervously around the neighborhood, instinctively searching for witnesses to the display, but the street was empty. 

"And it can take more than that," Hiei said. "I've tested it." 

"But…we searched all over that house looking for clues…" 

"We never tried anything offensive. There wasn't any reason we'd have thought to. The barrier only responds to an attack." 

"Who would put up a defensive barrier around Kurama's house, except maybe Kurama?" 

"It's not his ki signature. Besides, it's far too strong to be any of Kurama's work." 

"So who's is it?" 

"Good question. Come on." Hiei turned and unlatched the iron gate, stepping into the yard. 

"Hiei!" Yuusuke hissed, darting a look at the windows of the house, but saw nothing more than the reflected blue sky. Huffing, he followed the fire demon cautiously. 

The blue barrier flickered and died again as they walked up the path. Hiei detoured before reaching the house, soft boots near-silent in the grass, heading for the maple. 

"What are we doing?" Yuusuke asked. 

"Testing a theory." 

Hiei clawed one hand as he walked, and black fire swirled into shape over his palm. 

"Hiei…" 

Then the fire demon jerked as if shot in the back. With a choked cry, he stumbled, and Yuusuke was there to stabilize him. 

"Hiei!" 

"Try it," Hiei growled. "Try forming the rei gun." 

Yuusuke jerked back and stared at him for a moment. Hiei glared up at him, his mouth a tight line in his pale face. Yuusuke felt the uneasy knot in his stomach tighten. Slowly, pieces were coming together, and though he wasn't sure of the picture yet, he knew he wasn't going to like it. Curling his hand into the familiar gun shape, he focused a small amount of reiki. As soon as it took shape, he felt something pierce him between the shoulder blades, thin as a wire, cutting through bone, flesh, skin, and shooting out just under his sternum. 

"What—" he gasped. 

Then it slid through him, slick and painful, pulling his strength with it. He dropped to one knee, hand pressing to his chest as if closing a wound, but when he looked down, there was no blood. 

"What," he tried again. It took much more effort than it should've to get back to his feet. "..the _hell was that?" _

"We always wondered why there were no signs of struggle beyond what a mere human could do. This is why. It negates all offensive magic, reiki and youki." 

"Shit." 

Yuusuke let his anger flare his reiki, unrefined, and felt the barrier fluctuate to accommodate him. He pushed outward until his ki level was too high to be safe in a residential area, then let it die. The barrier showed no signs of strain. 

"Shit," he said again, staring at his shoes, jaw clenched, bitterness burning the back of his throat. His voice was low and deadly when he spoke again. "So what do we do now?" 

Yuusuke could feel Hiei's fangs behind his words. "There are only a handful of creatures capable of creating such a barrier." 

Yuusuke lifted his eyes, and felt himself smiling at the fire leaping behind Hiei's returning gaze. It was not a pleasant expression. "Then let's hunt." 

~*~ 

Kurama watched the last rim of sun slip below the horizon and contemplated his new affinity for rooftops. He wondered if it was because he liked to see things from as much a bird's view as possible, or perhaps he was just subconsciously hoping to run into another demon—small and dark—who also liked high places. In any case, here he was, standing on the edge of a building, letting the wind do its best to push him off, waiting for a sign. 

He hadn't heard from Kuronue all day. It was starting to worry him. 

Though the crow gave him space during the day, its thoughts were still a continuous hum in the back of his mind, like the murmur of low voices in another room. Since Shuichi had touched him, though, there had been nothing. 

Evening deepened to night. Kurama watched the sky, though nothing but stars appeared. Nervousness became a tickle in his stomach. 

Your power is in the crow. We are your anchor and your conduit. Without the crow, you can neither walk on this plane, nor call upon the power of the other. 

He decided to reach out on his own. _Kuronue? _

A flicker of black-winged disapproval answered. _Are you ready now? Finished with business that should not be yours to deal with? _

_That is not fair, Kurama protested. _

_"Fair" is not my concern._

Kurama pressed his lips together, clenching his jaw. _Can I care nothing for them any more? _

_You shouldn't be real to them, Kurama. You should be dead._

_And yet here I am._

_False life. How much more do you think it will hurt them now, when you leave? _

_I can't undo it._

_No._

The crow flew out of the dark, banking on cold air to perch on Kurama's shoulder, claws digging into leather, feathers brushing over his ear and cheek. He reached a hand up to caress the underside of a wing. 

_You are death, voice as soft as feathers on skin. __You will destroy what you touch. If you love them, stay away. _

Kurama let fingers trace over the black paint burned into his lips and carefully thought of nothing. The bird tilted its head, as if trying to meet his eyes. Then youkai cleverness faded, replaced by a single-minded drive, keyed to a blood scent on the wind. Kurama could feel it uncurling like smoke in his veins. 

_Follow, it said. __Follow. It grabbed air with its wings and climbed into the sky, soaring out over the city. _

Kurama followed. 

Moonlight silvered pruned leaves, which blackened as Kurama walked past until they gleamed blue highlights in the darkness and clicked like glass in the breeze. The kitsune, who had ever been attuned to nature, felt them die so suddenly it was not much like death at all. Not the slow withering of roots, this, but a quick and total silence. The murmur of plants ceased as he passed among them. Had his focus been less severe, he would've stopped to mourn. 

As it was, he could only be distracted briefly by the scenery: an old shrine, barely holding together at the seams. Weeds grew among the graveled paths. The well looked disused and dry. His nostrils flared, though in human form it was a useless gesture. The place smelled of dust and disuse, which made him wary of the perfectly kept garden. 

He slid forward, pulling shadow with him. The crow he could sense circling above, but its eyes saw nothing more than his own—just an empty temple, slowly returning to weeds and dirt. Something was calling him though. He could feel it, a tug on his soul string. So he took another careful step forward, senses alert, and left the protection of the wall, revealing himself to moonlight—bright in the courtyard. 

A shape stirred in the doorway of the temple, resolving itself far enough for Kurama to see an arm and a gun. 

Kurama leapt back as a bullet kicked up gravel where his feet would have been, and then again before the report of the first shot even reached his ears, sliding to a stop at the edge of shadow. He crouched, fingertips touching the earth, and waited. Dodging bullets was more instinctive than actual fear—because, of course, he was dead and fatal wounds meant nothing. 

Low laughter from the temple doorway indicated that his attacker was aware of this. The figure moved further into the light, solidifying out of vague darkness. Kurama's eyes narrowed. He felt his entire body coil into a low crouch. 

"Hawk." 

Hartfield's lackey grinned, aim never wavering. "Hey, you remember me. Good for you." 

He was only human. Kurama could smell that in the wind. Human and not as confident as his cockiness suggested, so should be nothing more than an easy kill. Yet there was more going on than the moonlight revealed, making Kurama hesitate, pressing a hand to his chest. Hawk's name was not on the list of those who had to die. 

The crow saw a flash of silver in the dark behind Kurama, and he ducked and rolled as a sword swept through air above his head. He regained his feet, facing his new enemy, and saw the face of a man he very much hated, though this one didn't have a name besides the one etched into Kurama's soul. 

_Fumiji Mitsuaki._

Kurama's focus narrowed to a white-hot pinprick and he lunged. 

Fumiji smirked and flicked his hand, and Kurama jerked backward, led by his wrists as they were yanked over his head, as if they were bound together with burning wire. He stood on tiptoe, his arms stretched over his head and his wrists crossed as the man approached clucking his tongue like a disapproving mother. 

A circle of arcane runes lit beneath Kurama's feet and pulsed red like a heartbeat. Kurama felt the light they cast burn against his skin like an electric field. The man stopped just at the edge and reached across the barrier, still smiling a spider's smile, to touch Kurama's lips. The crow screamed fury into the night. 

Hawk raised his gun. 

"_NO!_" 

Kurama flung himself against his bindings blindly, one sharp nail scratching across his skin as he jerked his head away. The gunshot was enough to deafen him briefly. Kurama felt something stick claws into his side, grab a chunk of flesh and shred. 

The crow fell like a broken arrow, and hit the dusty courtyard with a keen of despair. 

Kurama could have wailed, too, if he'd had any breath left. Instead, he could only stare at the bird as it floundered, numb. 

_I remember this. This is dying._

"Idiot!" the man snapped at Hawk, stepping away from Kurama and toward Hartfield's lackey menacingly. "You idiot!" He grabbed the gun away. "Did you kill it? If you did, I'll warrant it's your life next. You have no idea of what you're dealing with." 

Hawk bristled. "What the fuck is your problem? You wanted the bird taken out, I took it out." 

Kurama wanted to curl around the hurt spreading through his body, but he couldn't summon the strength. His chin dropped to his chest and the crow at his feet twitched, animalistic desperation burning behind its uncanny eyes. 

The moonlight was silver on black wings, and suddenly, silver was a sound—the highest violin string screaming once. Kurama jerked his head up as his heartbeat sent a ripple through his body, as if his blood were changing over into something thicker. The humans were still arguing. The crow was laughing, softly. 

Black lightning struck him between the shoulder blades, throwing him forward. He clenched his fists and the invisible wires holding him up shredded. Muscles slid, adjusted, caught him in a crouch too graceful to be human. Mist shimmered in a roiling cloud, lit by lightning, and when it cleared he stood straight and faced two startled humans from nearly a foot taller, and flexed his claws. 

Kuronue struck first. One wing sent Kurama's target flying; one claw swipe sent Hawk's gun clattering to the ground in pieces. Kuronue pounced on Hawk as Fumiji slid across the ground, smearing out part of his warding circle as he came to a stop at Kurama's feet. The kitsune smiled down at him, showing off his fangs. 

Demon senses were a terrible, wonderful thing. They let him hear the crunch of Kuronue breaking human bones, sift through the scents of fear and pain and sheer joy— 

Gave him a moment's warning, just before Fumiji's eyes turned black and the shadows came alive. 

~*~ 

There were many many many _many things Yuusuke could think of that he would rather be doing than getting drunk with a brooding Hiei. Of course, Yuusuke conceded as he slanted his smaller companion a sideways look, he couldn't be completely certain Hiei __was brooding—it wasn't much different from his normal appearance. He flicked long hair out of his eyes impatiently and turned his mug around in his hands again. He was in half-demon form, his hair still black, his power level impressive but not awe-inspiring. _

They were in a demon tavern, and he was trying to blend—which meant ragged hair down to his feet and black pants made of some light, loose material. This combined with an open vest to show off his tattoos made him feel nervous and exposed. Despite the time he'd spent in the Makai, large groups of rowdy demons still put him on edge. Besides, no matter how inconspicuous they tried to be, someone was going to recognize them soon. His adjusted appearance aside, he was still ruler of a third of the Makai, and in the presence of Mukuro's heir. 

Hiei was blood-hungry and hunting, and had grown progressively angrier at every dead end they had come to. Their last lead had brought them here—so here they were, waiting in shadows for a demon named Kakomu, the world getting a little fuzzier around the edges with every pint of whatever it was Yuusuke was drinking. He'd never had much stomach for demon alcohol. 

He knew he was in trouble when the brief thought of _Wouldn't it be funny if I dumped my drink over Hiei's head? actually seemed like a good idea. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. _

"Hey," he said. "I'm going to step outside for a minute." 

Hiei gave him a brief nod to acknowledge him without even looking up. Yuusuke rolled his eyes and made for the door. 

Outside, he could almost pretend he was still in the Ningenkai, except the stars were different, and the citadel in the distance looked like nothing of human design. It was spiraling and clawed, dangerous and shinning with magic lights. 

Botan appeared with a soft displacement of Reikai air that crackled like static as if fighting for existence in the Makai and raised hairs on Yuusuke's arms. 

"Botan!" he said, startled. 

The ferrygirl dropped off her oar immediately and stood as if shielding herself from sight behind Yuusuke's body. She looked at odds with her surroundings. "Shhh!" she hushed him. "Not so loud! I am_ so not supposed to be here." _

"I know," Yuusuke said, lowering his voice. "So why are you here?" 

"Because Kuwabara couldn't find you anywhere, and apparently I'm his new messenger service." Her grin took any sting out of the words. "So hop on and let's get out of here. This air does nasty things to my hair." 

"Kuwabara? What does he want? I can't just pick up and leave, I'm in the middle of—" 

_{Go.} _

Yuusuke blinked. "Hiei?" 

"Hiei?" Botan echoed. "Is he around here?" 

_{Go. I can do this myself.} _

Yuusuke wasn't sure whether he should be insulted or worried. "Are you sure?" 

_-blood and fire- {Yes.} _

"All right," he said, uneasily, then turned to Botan, who was giving him a speculating look. He chuckled weakly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Um. Right then. Let's go." 


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Not Mine! (for the longer version of this disclaimer, see chapter 1)

Chapter Summary: Shizuru answered the door and glanced at her brother. "What happened?" 

"He talked shit about a train and it decided to run him over," Yuusuke said with a grin. 

-Chapter 4-

Yuusuke hopped off the oar and saluted to Botan as she winked and vanished again. When she was gone, he looked around Kuwabara's apartment, trying to refamiliarize himself. He'd helped Kuwabara move in about two years ago, but hadn't been back since. There were files open and papers scattered across the coffee table, the sofa, books open on the kitchen table. 

Yuusuke bent to untie his shoes. He was back to human form, and enjoyed a moment of purely human activity. "Kuwabara?" he called, kicking out of them. 

When there was no immediate answer, he padded over to the kitchen and picked up a book, studying the circled star symbol on the cover and the map of Tokyo spread open on the refrigerator, held up by strong magnets. There were little red Xs marking five points. "Where are you, jerk?" he demanded loudly. "I left a homicidal Hiei with a jumpy sword hand and a grudge getting drunk in a tavern for you." He held up the book and compared the pattern of the Xs to the symbol on the cover. 

"Stop your bawling, Urameshi," Kuwabara answered from behind. 

Yuusuke turned and noticed Kuwabara's pained look and the bag of ice he was holding to the back of his head. "You thought about Botan naked again, didn't you?" he asked and grinned. 

"Shut up," Kuwabara groused. "How else am I supposed to get in contact with her? It's not like we're Reikai Tantei anymore." 

"Aa," Yuusuke agreed, handing the book back to him, cover up. "The points don't match up." 

"I know. I'm working on it." Kuwabara tossed the book back onto the table. "They don't match any of the traditional symbols, or even some of the more obscure runes." 

Yuusuke studied the map, tapping one finger to an X. "What do they stand for?" 

"Murders." 

"Eh?" Yuusuke gave him a startled look. "What murders?" 

"You don't know?" 

"Kuwabara. I didn't keep up with the news when I was a _regular resident in the Ningenkai." _

"Right." Kuwabara cleared his throat. "About six weeks ago, a school teacher and two of her students disappeared during a field trip to the Meiji Shrine, here near Harajuku station." His finger tapped a point on the map. "A day later, the teacher's body was recovered in this residential area here." He slid his finger over to cover one X. "Then the students were discovered here and here within the next two weeks." 

Yuusuke watched grimly as Kuwabara mapped out the trail of murders. 

"The next victims were a twenty-four year old businessman and a sixty-year-old nurse. Each one was killed exactly the same way—and cut ritualistically after. But there was no motive, no pattern of abduction, or relationship between the victims." Kuwabara gritted his teeth in frustration, then sighed and continued. "I was called in when a girl disappeared somewhere between the end of her volleyball practice at 4:00 pm and her piano lessons at 4:30 about a six days ago. At the time, it was an unrelated case. We thought it might be ransom or blackmail. She's the daughter of a wealthy family, the Hazamas, but there hasn't been any demands, any contact at all from the kidnappers. I think she's going to be the sixth victim." 

Yuusuke stared at the map, willing it to give him answers. "So you think there's a pattern in the locations?" 

"There has to be, dammit, they're just too evenly spaced for it to be anything else, and nothing else connects them. Besides that, all of Kurama's killings have occurred within a three mile radius of here." His finger circled Tokyo. "Right in the center of all those points." 

"So?" 

"So, they've got to be connected, somehow." 

"You think Kurama did those other killings?" 

"Of course not. Don't be stupid. I _do think that whatever's going on has something to do with Kurama, though. We never did find the bastard who killed him." _

"About that—" Yuusuke stopped when Kuwabara shivered hard enough to be noticeable and went white. "Oi!" he said and reached out a hand to steady him. 

"Did-did you feel that?" 

"Feel wh—" 

Pressure exploded in his head, like blood vessels bursting outward. He reeled, catching himself on the table, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open in a silent scream. Then it was gone, leaving an echo of pain and his eyes watering. He straightened to see Kuwabara wipe a trickle of blood off his upper lip. 

_"What—was that?" Yuusuke demanded. _

"I don't know, but it was big." 

"Can you get a fix on it?" 

"Yeah," Kuwabara answered without hesitation. The psychic imprint was like a cold palm laid on his mind. "Come on," he said, turning toward the door, because of course they were going to find out what was going on, Reikai Tantei or no Reikai Tantei. 

Over his shoulder, he saw Yuusuke grin, a familiar dangerous glint lighting his eyes, and found himself grinning back. Just like old times. 

~*~ 

Human magic was a tricky and mysterious thing. Kurama had had little experience with it beyond warding spells and good luck charms, weak folk magic. 

The air shimmered around him as if distorted by heat. He could feel power being pulled from the ground, the stone walls, the weeds, the wood of the shrine. _Definitely not weak folk magic. _

The living shadows were easy enough to deal with and surprisingly simple to defeat—one just had to slice through them; they were only slightly studier tissue paper. Which made him think they were nothing more than a distraction. What he could feel building in the night around him made him cold to his bones. The leaves whispered, sounding terrified murmurs into a chill wind that cut through the courtyard and circled like a wary dog growing ever angrier. 

Then it stopped. The shadows pulled back as if even they were afraid to stay, leaving Kurama feeling exposed in the too quiet courtyard. He pushed his hair back from his eyes and looked around. The only other person he saw was Kuronue crouched low, and the dead body at his feet. The winged demon straightened slowly, wide eyes darting back and forth.

"Kuronue?" he questioned, sliding a wary step forward. Kuronue looked well and truly spooked, and that was unnerving.

Kuronue made two quick gestures with one hand. _Stay. _And then, _listen._

Kurama cocked his head, ears flicking. He thought maybe they were trying to find the sorcerer, Fujimi, so listened for human sounds: breathing, a heartbeat. Instead, he heard sounds of pain, low but jarring. He turned, trying to pinpoint where it came from, feeling the hair on his arms rise up. It seemed to emanate from the earth, drift up from cracked cobblestones. Kurama looked at Kuronue for an answer, but the other demon was backing toward him hastily, looking around as if he expected an attack.

"Kuronue, what is it?"

"The dead," Kuronue answered, grabbing his arm and pulling Kurama behind him. "It's the dead."

"What?" He turned to look Kuronue in the face and flinched back as a ghostly arm materialized to the elbow, fingers stretching toward his face. Kuronue slashed at it with a wing. Kurama heard a girl scream faintly, breath against his neck, and the arm disappeared. "I can't see them! Can you?"

"They're below your spectrum," Kuronue said, eyes darting and fixing on definite points that held nothing but emptiness for Kurama. "Careful, don't let them touch you. They can do the damage that caused their deaths, and some of these things look like they died pretty nastily."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. This would be easier if you could fly."

"Great. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." He couldn't see anything, but he could feel them, closing in. Moans, gasps, faint screaming, and sometimes, mad laughter filtered through the silence, always louder. "What _are_ they?"

"Tormented souls. The angry dead. Souls that have suffered so much they would rather live in void, in nothingness, than face the world any longer. Our target opened a gate into the void and exposed them to suffering again." Kuronue looked at the kitsune over his shoulder. "They're kinda pissed off."

Kurama looked around the empty courtyard and listened to the ghosts get closer. "Fly."

"What?"

"Fly!"

Kuronue gave him an incredulous look. "They'll kill you!"

"It doesn't matter, remember? It won't be anything permanent. It's _you_ who's in trouble. Fly, dammit!" He gave Kuronue a little push. "Find Fujimi. We have to end this."

The winged demon gave him a deliberating look, lips thinning. Then he sighed, pushed away from Kurama, took a step and opened his wings. Kurama felt youkai intelligence slough away as the demon launched and became a crow, beating its wings determinedly against the air as it climbed into the sky.

Kurama didn't spare it a long look, or much thought. The link was opened between them so he knew the crow was hunting. He had other problems. There would be no easy way out. The temple gate seemed long yards away, and he wasn't certain the ghosts were contained within temple boundaries, anyway.

His sight was making him jump at imagined movement, straining to see what he could hear around him. He shut his eyes and concentrated on keeping his ears forward and alert, though instinct told him to flatten them back and run. He didn't know if the laws of sound applied to ghosts—if he could really predict their movements by listening to them, but it was the only option he had at the moment.

A dry leaf scraped across cobblestones, as if moved by the long hem of a dress. There were soft, gritty footfalls on the dusty ground. He flinched back and felt air shift in front of him, as if someone had taken a swipe at where his face would've been.

_Smaller. Must be smaller._

Shifting to his fox form was tricky. It had been a very long time. But eventually bones resettled, animal instinct took over thought. He opened his eyes to a black and white world where grotesque shapes once human were closing in. Animals could see spirits.

He nipped at the nearest one to make it back off, and then yelped as his ankle shattered. The ghost turned its head around without moving its body, blood and saliva and bits of teeth leaking out of its mouth to look at him with empty, bleeding eye sockets. It looked as if it had been beaten to death several times and then crucified. Kurama scrambled back. Putting weight on his injury sent white-hot pain up his leg. He could feel edges of bone grinding against each other. 

The wound was knitting itself back together, fast enough that Kurama's next step was painless. The kitsune caught himself, leapt over another ghost—pigtails, holding a bloody teddy bear, skin hanging in strips—and made a break for the gate. The dead screamed, enough despair and malicious anger to make his steps falter, but he flattened his ears, dropped his head and kept running.

He dodged an attack from the right, had to skid to a quick stop to avoid tripping over an armless ghost bleeding from the mouth. He twisted out of the path of two creatures that might have been women at some point, the gate a reachable goal, now. 

The decimated hand that shot out of the ground and caught his ankle was a shock. He yelped—or tried to, as he went down, but his throat was slit. Then blinding light and pain as if someone had clubbed him over the head. 

Then, a voice, cracking clear across the oppressive weight of rage and grief. "Fuckers! Get away from him!"

He flailed, still trying to move forward, pain fading, eyesight slowly returning. He heard the dead shriek and then go silent, as if pausing for breath.

"Get down, Kuwabara. _SHOT GUN!!" _

White blue light, and he was blind again. Deaf, too—ears full of keening despair as ghosts became visible in the bright light just before they disintegrated.

"Shit, Urameshi! Think you could cut that any closer?"

"Yeah. Duck. _REI…**GUN**!"_

"Dammit, cut that out! Let me have a turn."

"Be my guest."

He flinched and rolled instinctively away from a bright sword made of yellow-gold light slicing through incorporeal forms hovering over his head. Feet moved into his line of vision and halted his momentum, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the arms that swept him up and cradled him.

"Kurama—Kurama! Knock it off. I've got ya."

—ping ping

_He looked up from his homework toward his window. _

ping

_Small stones off the windowpanes. He stood and walked to the window, curious, but not overly cautious. He doubted an enemy would have given warning. But who was it? Hiei never bothered knocking and besides, the snow was thick on the ground; it was far too cold for the fire demon to make a surprise visit. _

_He opened the window and looked down, flinching just in time to avoid a stone between the eyes. "Hey!" _

_"Oops. Sorry!" _

_Yuusuke, standing under the maple tree, grinning up toward the window, teeth a white slash in the dark.— _

Warm brown eyes, crinkling at the corners, smiled down at him. "Hey there, stranger."

_Yuusuke,_ Kurama thought, wanting to smile back. _Hello._ A sharp tug from his link with the crow yanked him from the moment. He animal instinct took over, and he scrambled as Yuusuke cursed, up Yuusuke's jacket to launch off his shoulder. _I'm sorry, _he thought as Yuusuke called his name. _I'm sorry. He ran into the night. _

Kurama kept pace under the crow's shadow, hiding the slick silver shimmer of his fur as he sprinted down busy streets and through abandoned alleyways. In his head, Fujimi was running, too, and the man disappeared when he met with shadow, to reappear when there was light, far too quickly for him to have traveled that distance by conventional means. Somewhere inside, Kurama knew it was magic, a variation of a teleportation spell, one he'd never seen before. He knew he should be wary, but the fox in him was hunting, happy and voracious, teeth aching for flesh and blood. 

Somewhere inside, he also ached for company, unused to hunting without a pack, tired of finding friends only to lose them again. Underneath the bloodlust, he could feel exhaustion chipping steadily away at his nerves. He knew his body no longer needed rest, so he could only assume it was his soul that wanted to sleep. 

But rage was still there, too. Burning bright in his mind, keeping his belly low to the ground, his teeth bared. For now, there was no rest. Only revenge. 

Fujimi vanished into a shadow and didn't emerge again. 

Kurama slowed to a stop and looked around the empty street, demon eyes searching details in darkness where mortals wouldn't have been able to see anything, yet still he saw nothing. The crow landed on a lamppost, ink-drop eyes scanning the area, bewildered in the way of a wild creature that'd lost its prey while it was in plain sight. 

Kurama shifted into human form, needing intelligence above instinct to test this trap. He knew a little of magic, could even perform a few rudimentary spells, or had been able to, before his death. He wasn't sure if he could call on anything now but that sharp, dark magic of hate and vengeance. Still, human magic left the same taste in the back of his mouth as Crow magic did. It was of the deep earth, hard as iron, ancient as blood. He crouched and touched his fingers to the ground, straining to feel the shift of magic. 

He tucked has hand into his hair, then made an arcing gesture, scattering seeds out across the ground. Brushing his hands together, he stood and stepped out into the street, right into a pool of light. 

Shadows struck out immediately, but blasted apart as soon as they hit the light, which Kurama had anticipated. 

The gunshot and hot spray of shrapnel that hit his chest was a surprise. He hit the lamppost, pain jarring enough to startle him. Fujimi walked out of the dark carrying a shotgun and wearing a smirk. 

"I know you won't die," he said, approaching. "But I can make you suffer." 

"You soon," Kurama gasped, trying to find enough breath to speak, "will run out of bullets." 

"Yes," the sorcerer agreed, leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger. 

Kurama jerked with the impact, thinking perhaps that bits of his spine were now permanently lodged in the pole. Fujimi opened the shotgun, ejecting two shells and reached into his pocket for two more. Kurama leapt for him, put stopped short as a shadow lashed out and forced him to jump back out of harm's reach. 

"As soon as you step outside the light, my shadows will have you." Fujimi snapped his gun shut and took aim. "There are three hours until sunrise. Let's see which one of us gives out first." 

Kurama's eyes narrowed as he pushed himself straight on the lamppost, defiant. The next shot knocked him sideways. He stumbled a bit, and his arm fell into shadow, where the creatures immediately grabbed on, wrapping around his bicep like wide swaths of cloth. He clutched the pole and pulled back. Shrapnel ripped through his arm, scattering across his collarbone, punching through his ribs into his heart. He let go. 

The shadows wrapped him up, tore him from under the light and slammed him up against a brick wall, holding him a foot above the ground, secured by his wrists and ankles. Bound as if to a cross, arms out, ankles crossed, Kurama grimaced and strained to get away, but found no yield at all. 

"Now," Fujimi said, flicking one hand up in a graceful gesture that pulled power from Kurama's bones and cast it into the bricks. 

The kitsune gasped as he went cold and weak and the bricks behind him lit up as if they were on fire. But instead of a circle or the traditional pentagram, what seared into the brick was the Crow, fiery wings spread from Kurama's fingertips, tail fanning open at his feet. It glowed softly, and drew power from its captive like a steady stream of blood. 

Fujimi made a motion to bring his hand down, and Kurama felt it would be the axe falling, a death, and he felt fear. 

Then the crow flew out of darkness and clipped the sorcerer in the head, interrupting his spell. Fujimi cursed and sent the shadows in pursuit. They overwhelmed the bird like a wave, pulling it under, grounding it. A moment of distraction, but it was enough. Kurama's feet hit the ground, arms still out, and he summoned the seeds under Fujimi's feet to grow. 

Seeds from the long grass that grew soft in Makai fields. Not very deadly under normal circumstances, and probably the least offensive plant Kurama carried, but dark hate gave them edges and strength. Sharp spires of obsidian crystal shot from the ground, stabbing though Fujimi's feet into his legs. 

The sorcerer screamed and fell. The shadows turned on Kurama. He closed his eyes and tried to dodge, but like water, they tried to seep under his eyelids, into his mouth and nose, suffocating. He gritting his teeth and thought only _grow grow until the shadows stopped moving, shuddered once like a dying thing, and fell away to dissipate into nothing. _

Fujimi lay on the ground, wide eyes open to the dark sky, mouth gaping in surprise, with thirty thin spikes of crystallized grass puncturing his lungs. 

Kurama approached the body cautiously. Magic lingered in the air; the faint smell of ozone and earth, but though he stayed crouched and ready when he nudged the body, nothing dramatic happened. The wind blew cold and like smoke the last of the magic faded away, leaving Kurama staring at a corpse and wondering where all feeling had gone. His long coat flicked forward in the breeze to brush questioningly against Fujimi's cooling cheek. 

Kuronue, back to demon form, stepped up to him and gave him a sharp smack on the back of the head. It so startled Kurama that his melancholy vanished in an instant and he turned indignantly. 

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Kuronue demanded before Kurama could speak. "Tuxedo Mask?" His face pinched in a disapproving frown as he made a sharp gesture toward the dead sorcerer. "You know, most Crows use guns." 

"I'm not most Crows." Kurama caught the belling edges of his coat and pulled them in close to his sides. "Besides, guns are far too conspicuous." 

"The opposition is certainly free with them," Kuronue grumbled, kicking Fujimi's shotgun. 

"They knew I was coming. How?" 

"Someone must have warned them." 

Kurama reviewed his nights—only three, though it seemed so much longer, and searched for an answer. 

Totemo. The cell phone. He had punched a number: "He's here!" Then someone had called back. Kurama had memorized the number, taken it to Kuwabara, asked him to find out who it belonged to. 

Kuronue, who was in his thoughts always, said, "Maybe we should go ask him about that." 

Kurama gave him a slanted look. "I thought I wasn't supposed to involve the living." 

Kuronue shrugged. "They're changing the rules." 

~*~ 

Yuusuke had his arms full of unconscious Kuwabara when he reached the door of the taller man's apartment. "I can't believe I had to carry your heavy ass up here," he groused, having already assessed Kuwabara's condition as non-critical and now past the point of openly worrying about him. "Goddamn broken elevator." He kicked the door three solid times and waited. 

Shizuru answered his knocking and glanced at her brother. Concern was brief but intense in her expression, but then she looked at Yuusuke and relaxed. "What happened?" 

"He talked shit about a train and it decided to run him over," Yuusuke said with a grin. Shizuru smirked and stood aside to let him in. 

"Nothing debilitating?" she asked. 

"Nah. Yukina took care of it. He's just sleeping off a psychic attack." 

"From what?" 

"Ghosts." 

Shizuru nodded as she followed him into the living room where Jiro sat on the floor, wrapped loosely in a sheet over his borrowed pajamas. He was in front of the coffee table, which had been cleared a bit so cards and money could be laid out. "Was that what gave me the migraine of a lifetime a few hours ago?" 

"Yeah, it's a safe bet. Would you grab his feet?" 

"Need help?" Jiro asked, half rising. 

"Nah," Shizuru said, picking up her brother's legs and helping Yuusuke lay Kuwabara on the couch. 

They made sure he was comfortable and not about to roll off, then Yuusuke turned and considered Jiro. "Hey, do I know you?" 

"Not yet, but feel free to at any time," the boy said, grinning. "I'm Jiro. Are you Kuwabara's gangster friend?" 

"I'm Yuusuke." Yuusuke grabbed a blanket Shizuru tossed to him and threw it open, and laid it on top of Kuwabara until he looked comfortable, before turning back to the boy, hands on hips. He tilted his head. "Kuwabara's 'gangster friend,' huh?" He grinned back. "Cool." 

Jiro nodded, his expression a caricature of wisdom. "Saved from a tragic life on the streets by Kuwabara's virtuous teaching and honorable example." 

Yuusuke laughed, and made a mental note to give Kuwabara's "virtuous" ass a swift "gangster" kick as soon as he was conscious. He took off his shoes and sat down tangent to Jiro on another side of the table, picking up Shizuru's cards. "Hm. Nice hand." 

"Hey!" Shizuru snatched the cards away and smacked him on the head with them. "What's the big idea?" 

"Just trying to keep your corruption of innocent youth down to a minimum. Gambling _is illegal, you know." _

The woman rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Right. And I'm sure you're just a model citizen." 

Jiro grinned at him. "Thanks. I think I'll fold." He dropped his cards on the table and organized his remaining money into a stack. "Peanut butter?" He offered a spoonful of it. 

Yuusuke wrinkled his nose as Shizuru stepped over and around them, grumbling and clearing off her side of the table. "Nah…it'd stick to the roof of my mouth. I hate that. Doesn't it bother you?" 

"No. Well, I suppose it would, if it did stick, but it doesn't." He licked the spoon. 

"Weirdness." 

"Talent," Jiro countered. "My mouth is very talented." And he leered. 

Yuusuke tossed a grin at Shizuru. "I take it back. He's already well and truly corrupted." 

"I _told you," Shizuru said, then picked up her keys and jangled them at the two. "I'm going out to get some supplies—medicine, milk. Anything you want me to get for you?" _

"Medicine?" Yuusuke queried. 

Shizuru lost her sarcasm and became serious. "For Shuichi. He's…not doing too well. Fever. It isn't bad, yet, so I was waiting to ask Kazuma if it would be all right to bring him to a hospital. What with all the weirdness going on, I didn't know if it would be safe. Which reminds me—call Yukina," she said to Yuusuke. "I don't know if she can really help with symptoms of withdrawal, but it couldn't hurt." 

"Wait—What Shuichi? What withdrawal? What's going on?" 

"Oh, that's right. You weren't here. I have to go. Jiro will explain it to you." She turned toward the door. "And don't forget to call Yukina." She left. 

Yuusuke looked at Jiro. "So. Talk." 

Twenty minutes later, when they'd finally sorted out how Shuichi the Younger was related to Shuichi the Actually-a-Yoko-in-a-Human-Body, and how everyone had come to meet everyone else, Jiro got around to exactly how bad the situation was. 

"He's going into withdrawal." 

"The drugs?" Yuusuke asked. 

Jiro nodded, his face solemn. "Yeah. It weakens them, keeps them from fighting back. And, besides, when they're finally hooked, they don't run away. They have to get their daily fix." 

"Damn," Yuusuke growled, clenching his fists. "What about you? Are you addicted?" 

"Nah, I'm not a regular. I'm not actually contracted. And I have a high tolerance to that sort of thing, anyway. But the others…aren't that lucky. And the contracts? Pretty much non-negotiable and valid until they die." 

"Fuck." Yuusuke stood because he had to or he would hit something. _Now I remember why I left the Reikai Tanei. What's the fucking point of saving the world, Koenma, if I can't save people from the monsters that already live in it? _

He grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed a number. Fortunately, Genkai had yielded to technology far enough to allow for a line into the temple. But then, there was only a small chance that anyone would answer. After ten rings, he was about to give up, when there was a click and a soft, sweet voice on the other end. 

"You see? I pick it up and it stops mewling. Poor thing. I think it only wants to be held." 

"Yukina!" 

There was a startled pause. 

"Yukina!" he called again. "Yukina, it's the phone. I'm…on…the…phone… Do you understand?" 

"Yuusuke-san?" Her voice was distant and tinny, as if she were holding the phone out to arm's length. "Yuusuke-san, are you in there?" 

"Yes, Yukina," he said patiently, thumping his forehead on the wall. So far, three people had attempted to explain the concept of a phone to Yukina, and though she had listened politely each time, it was evident she hadn't really understood. 

"Oh my! How did that happen? Are you all right?" 

"I'm great. Just… is Genkai there?" _Someone who knows__ how to use a phone? _

"Um… no I don't believe so. Oh! But Keiko-san is!" 

He straightened, brightening. "Keiko? Great. Put her on, please?" 

"On? On what?" 

"Give her the phone, I mean." 

"Oh, of course." 

In the background, there was shuffling. 

"Okay," Keiko said, her voice sharp and annoyed. "Where were you?" 

"What? Where was I when?" 

There was a deadly silence. 

Then Yuusuke's memory gave him a sharp kick in the pants. "Oh! Oh shit. The dinner. Our date. Keiko, I'm sorry. Fuck. I didn't even think—" He managed to stop before he dug himself deeper. "Um. I mean…Shit." 

"Stop swearing!" Keiko snapped. Then her voice softened slightly. "So what's your excuse? Are you actually a complete jackass, or did something happened?" 

"Something happened," he assured her hastily. 

"Something with…Kurama?" 

"Yeah." His voice got quieter automatically. 

"Oh. Well, I suppose I could forgive you this once. But fair warning—I'm going to smack you next time I see you. Do you _know how worried I've been? You could have at least called!" _

"Fair enough," he said with a grin. 

"So what do you need?" 

"Actually, I need Yukina to get over to Kuwabara's apartment as soon as she can." 

"Someone got hurt?" Worry was evident in her tone. 

"Yeah, but not one of us. And he's not bleeding or anything. Just sick." 

"Okay. What happened?" 

"Long story. Really really long." 

"Tell me later, then. I'll send Yukina over." 

It suddenly occurred to him that Keiko might feel left out with just about the whole gang at Kuwabara's without her. "Um, you can come too. If you want. I mean," he amended hastily, "I want you here! Please come over." 

"Yuusuke, stop. You're cute, but it's a good thing I'm not marrying you for your tact. I know you hate it when I get involved in these things. Besides, my parents need me to help at the restaurant. So call me so I don't worry that you're dead somewhere and I want to know the details of what exactly is going on before the end of the week, so work that into your schedule." 

Yuusuke felt his grin widen. "I love you." 

"I love you, too. Which is a good thing because you'd be _so dead if I didn't. Now, I'm hanging up before this gets any mushier." _

Yuusuke made messy-kissy noises into the phone. 

"You are _such a dork," Keiko said, only half-joking and hung up. _

"See ya." He said to the dial tone and replaced the phone in its cradle, feeling much better. Then he turned back to Jiro. 

"Who's Yukina?" the boy asked. 

"A healer," Yuusuke answered, as he padded into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. 

"Like…a doctor?" 

"Yeah, but better." He stuck his head inside. "Whoa. If I'd known this was all Kuwabara had I would've asked Shizuru to get some real food while she was out." 

Jiro started shuffling cards idly. "Bad?" 

"Like a graveyard for Chinese takeout leftovers." Yuusuke picked up a white carton and opened the flap, taking an experimental sniff. "Ugh." He made a face, closed it hastily and tossed it into the trashcan. 

Jiro was making cards appear and disappear between his fingers. "Speaking of Shizuru, shouldn't she be home soon?" 

"Don't worry, she—" He stopped when someone knocked on the door. 

"Speak of the devil," Jiro grinned and hopped up to answer it. "But don't tell her I said that." 

Yuusuke frowned. "Wait. Didn't Shizuru…take her keys?" 

Jiro paused with one hand on the door, then stepped away warily as Yuusuke motioned him to one side. 

"Funny," Yuusuke murmured as he approached, stepping ready on the balls of his feet. "No ki signature." He flung the door open and took aim with the rei gun. 

"Hi," Kurama said from where he leaned against the doorframe. 

Yuusuke was only startled for a moment. Then he grinned, slung an arm around Kurama's shoulders and dragged him inside. "Hi right back to ya!" He put Kurama in a loose headlock and ruffled his hair before releasing him. "How have you been? _Where have you been? How did you get here? You realize that I will have to hurt you for all the worry you've caused." _

Kurama waited patiently through the barrage of questions and smiled slightly at the threat. He wandered into the room toward Kuwabara, touching the back of the couch as he paused there. "What happened?" 

"Nothing much. He's all right. Don't worry. He should be waking up soon." 

"I need to speak with him." 

"So stick around. Or wake him up. But I'm warning you, he wakes up like an angry bear. But if you need me to," Yuusuke promised, smacking his fist into his open palm and winking, "I'll hold him down for you." Yuusuke tilted his head when there was no response to his teasing besides a distracted look and a wrinkle of worry that had formed between Kurama's eyebrows. "What's up?" 

Kurama turned and looked at him, opened his mouth, shut it again, and then shook his head in denial. "I just…need to talk to Kuwabara." 

Yuusuke choked back a frustrated growl. If this had been Kuwabara standing there, hemming and hawing and obviously in trouble, Yuusuke would have picked a fight and then demanded the truth after he'd locked the taller man into some sort of wrestling hold. But this was Kurama, and a person just didn't pick fights with Kurama. The kitsune would likely not forgive a person for doing that, even if said person had only his best interests in mind. 

"Kurama," Yuusuke said, locking gazes. "What is it?" 

"Shu-Shuichi?" a soft, scratchy voice interrupted softly. 

All eyes turned to the pale, thin figure standing in the shadow of a hallway, using a wall for support, eyes sunken in above sharp cheekbones. 

"Shuichi!" Jiro cried and hurried over to him, grabbing his sheet off the floor where he'd left it to wrap around the boy's shoulders. "You shouldn't be up." 

Shuichi made a vague effort to push Jiro away, or maybe to halt his motherly fussing, but didn't actually have much energy to give. "I heard voices. I heard…" He looked at Kurama. "You're alive," he said, quietly, something brighter and clearer than the fever fire lighting his eyes. 

Kurama looked down, and then back up again. "Shuichi, what…what happened? To you? What happened to your father?" 

It was Shuichi's turn to look down, soft laugh ragged and deep in his throat, sounding more like swallowed sobbing. "My father." Hateful spite that startled Yuusuke. "My father is perfectly fine." 

"I don't understand…" Kurama frowned. 

Yuusuke doubted that. He hadn't grown up sheltered and neither had Kurama—at least, not in his demon lifetime. Already Yuusuke was getting a picture of what might have happened, and he didn't have the years of experience with darkness as Kurama did. 

Shuichi closed his eyes, fingers rubbing over his forehead. "I don't want to talk about it right now. I can't think…I have to—the drugs." 

"We know," Yuusuke reassured him, meeting Kurama's questioning eyes and giving a quick shake of his head. _Not now. "We've called someone to help you." _

"I'll take you back to bed," Jiro said gentle, making little herding motions with his hands. "You have to rest." 

"No." Shuichi's eyes were wide, suddenly, his voice on the edge of panic. Everyone paused. "I…I have bad dreams." 

"You can come take my seat, then." Kuwabara, awake and only a little worse for ware, rubbing a hand over his hair and kicking the blanket off his legs. He stood and moved to one side as Jiro helped Shuichi over. He looked at Kurama and Yuusuke. "So, what's going on?" He looked primarily at Kurama, who was trying to avoid eye contact without actually seeming to avoid eye contact. 

"I need to know the origin of that number I gave to you earlier today." 

Kuwabara looked chagrined. "Oh, dammit. You know, I completely forgot about that. But, hey don't worry. I'll run it over to the office first thing in the morning. Now where did I put it…?" He began rooting through the papers scattered across the coffee table. "Hey! Who moved stuff?" 

"Is this it?" Shuichi picked up a small piece of paper with ripped edges and looked at it. Then he froze and went white. 

Kuwabara plucked it out of his grip and flipped it so he could read the numbers. "Yeah, this is it. Thanks." He tucked it into his inner coat pocket. 

"I don't think," Shuichi said, the strangeness in his tone stopping all other activity in the room. "I don't think you'll need to trace that number." 

"Why not?" Kuwabara ventured quietly. 

"Because I know it. It's my father's cell phone number." He focused on Kuwabara. "What…what does he have to do with this? What has he done?" 

Kuwabara looked at Kurama though he spoke to the boy. "Are you sure that's what it is, Shuichi?" 

"Yeah, I'm sure. Very sure." 

Kurama stared back, then turned his eyes to Shuichi, and swept over Jiro and Yuusuke. Then he turned on his heal, black coat swirling and walked out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. For a moment, no one moved. Kuwabara and Yuusuke snapped out of it at the same time, both hurrying to follow. 

"Stay," Yuusuke said sharply, cutting ahead and blocking the taller boy. 

Kuwabara bit down on something that would have been embarrassingly close to _you're not the boss of me, and glared back. _

"I know." Yuusuke's aura was gentleness and demand all at once. "Just…" Brown eyes flicked back toward the bewildered faces of the boys on the couch. "Stay." 

Kuwabara listened to the conflicting emotions inside and out until he was sure he was making the right choice, then nodded. "How are we supposed to help him if he keeps running?" 

"I'll bring him back." 

"Dammit, we're his _friends. We couldn't save him before and now he won't even give us a __chance." _

Yuusuke's eyes were a solid force, compelling. "I'll bring him back." 

"Do that." 

Yuusuke slammed open the door to the stairwell and hit the guide bars with enough force to almost throw himself over the edge. He looked down. Nothing. He looked up, just out of reflex, and saw the flick of disappearing fingers on the railing, heard the soft slap of leather against a plaster wall. 

He took the stairs two at a time, but knew that unless Kurama had figured out how to fly, he wasn't really going anywhere. Demon speed and demon stamina made the trip short and easy. On the rooftop, gravel grated under his feet, and Kurama was a black figure cut out against a brightening sky. Yuusuke kept his distance. Kurama's personal space was like a physical thing under normal circumstances. Now, he wasn't sure if he could make it across that invisible line without severe willpower. 

"I failed her." His voice was like a knife's edge, but Yuusuke knew the damage done was internal. "I let him in. I let that _killer in. She asked and I told her I—__approved." _

"You don't know yet. Not for sure. We don't even know if he's got anything to do with…" He faded off when Kurama turned his head enough to present his profile and give Yuusuke a cool look out of a golden eye. 

"Spare me compassion." Guttural growl in his undertone, something Yuusuke had never heard from Kurama's human form. "It is uselessly human. I am done with useless and human." 

Yuusuke's visceral response was to lower his stance and get ready for battle, but he fought it and took a step forward instead. "Don't do this. Come back. We'll figure something out." 

Kurama turned to face him fully in a motion quick and fierce enough to set off warning bells. "You are such a stupid child." The redhead was practically snarling, teeth bared. "Don't you understand that I would sooner slaughter all who wrong me than be wrapped up in your moral idiocy?" 

"Kurama—" He grabbed the kitsune's arm, fully prepared to hold him down and call for help, startled when his hand was flung off with little effort. 

"Get. _Away. From me." _

Then Kurama did something else unexpected. While Yuusuke jumped back, ready to dodge killer vines or a deadly rose whip, Kurama pursued, fist leading, and punched Yuusuke hard enough to send him reeling. That's when Yuusuke knew, with a sudden clarity, as his knees and palm skidded on the rough gravel, that Kurama wasn't actually trying to kill him, hadn't fallen so far into his demon that he didn't know his allies any more. Instead, Yuusuke found himself grinning, because he knew this game. He stood up and wiped the blood off his lip. 

"All right, asshole. Let's go." 

So they danced. It was bloody and violent and sometimes so graceful it almost felt coordinated. When neither used any powers beside demon speed and strength, they were nearly evenly matched. Kurama fought like someone out of a Kung Fu movie, stylized poise and moves that flowed from one swift, deadly attack to another with no room for breathing between. Yuusuke's style was mostly street and a lot of times relied on some semi-dirty tricks to gain the advantage. 

They worked like oil and water, edges meeting, sliding, pulling away again. Kurama's hair was fire-bright, his eyes even brighter. Yuusuke didn't have to be a sensitive to feel his rage. He just took it, absorbed it and sent it back as something else, stronger. 

Yuusuke knew what this kind of grieving fury and hate felt like, how it filled up all the cold places and made thoughts temper into a wire-thin focus. He also knew that it was deceptive, feeling like strength and then dying so quickly into emptiness deeper than what it had filled. Rage was a madness, but at least it was fleeting—as long as it had an outlet. All he had to do was wait. 

Until then, he reflected as his back hit gravel and he slid, he would admire Kurama's ability to dish out as good as he got and tried not to think of the stones he would be pulling out of his skin. He rolled out of the way as Kurama pounced, noticing a change. The redhead's movements were becoming less and less refined as anger turned into something else, more feral. 

Yuusuke growled softly in response, his demon reacting to Kurama's golden eyes and silvering hair. The next few minutes were fast and furious, full of clawed hands and sharp teeth and the two of them circling each other like warring wolves, until Yuusuke made a sliding attack for Kurama's legs and the kitsune didn't quite jump high enough. They collided in a tangle, where Kurama's fighting style was at a disadvantage and Yuusuke knew exactly what to do. He rolled, trapping legs and capturing wrists, until he had Kurama pinned beneath him, teeth a hard warning on his exposed throat. 

The reaction was instantaneous. Kurama went passive, soft growling dying away, and they lay there together, breathing. Yuusuke was trying to judge whether it was safe to let go when a tremor passed through the redhead, and he felt wetness that could have just been sweat but wasn't, hit his cheek where it was pressed under Kurama's chin. He lifted his head. 

Kurama's eyes were clear green again. Yuusuke saw that before they closed over tears. 

"Kurama…" 

"Let me up." 

Yuusuke sat back, releasing his wrists. Kurama put his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes. "You left the Reikai Tantei." 

Yuusuke looked away. "Yeah. It was time." 

Kurama's silence said he was waiting for the truth. 

"We couldn't save you," Yuusuke said, finally, voice low and rough. "Do you have any idea what a kick in the teeth that was?" 

_What's the fucking point… _

Kurama dropped his hands and looked up at him. 

"I mean, gods," Yuusuke continued, "it might have been easier, more forgivable, if it had been a mission, if it had been demons, but it wasn't. It was just people." 

_What's the fucking point of saving the world, Koenma… _

"No it wasn't," Kurama said softly. 

"Yeah, but we didn't know that, then." 

_What's the fucking point to saving the world, Koenma, if I can't save people from the monsters that already live in it? _

Kurama sat up, careful hand on Yuusuke's cheek to steady him, and touched their foreheads together. Then he jerked as if struck, his other hand coming up to grab Yuusuke's shoulder. More tears. 

"Stop that," Yuusuke snapped, wiping them away. It was really disconcerting to see the kitsune cry. Kurama might look soft and somewhat girly, but Yuusuke knew underneath he was bright and cold and hard as diamond. 

"It's not my grief," Kurama said softly, tilting his cheek into Yuusuke's hand and opening his eyes. "It's yours." 

Something hot fisted in Yuusuke's throat, shutting off his protests. Sorrow was a physical presence, pressing down on his shoulders like ghostly hands, and he bent just a little under the weight. "I would have died for you," he said and his eyes ached but there were no tears, so he held Kurama and let the kitsune cry, silently, for both of them. 


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Not Mine! (for the longer version of this disclaimer, see chapter 1)

Chapter Summary: All three looked at Genkai, who had been silent since the explanation had started. Yuusuke noted she was wearing her "things are bad" look, which was much akin to her "I need more sake" look and her "my, isn't it a lovely day" look. Genkai really only had one look, with small variations on the placement of her eyebrows.

-Chapter 5-

When it was over, and the raw emotions had been made into something gentler, more manageable, Yuusuke asked, "What will you do now?" 

Kurama pulled away, trying to distance himself from the continuous feed of thoughts that flowed from Yuusuke into him. "There is still one more I am allowed to kill. It is not Hatanaka. When the last one is dead, I will be returned to the Reikai." 

He ignored Yuusuke's sharp, incredulous look and tugged at his trapped legs. "So…you'll just let him get away with what he did?" 

"No. I'll just have to find Hatanaka first." 

Yuusuke disentangled himself and stood up, stretching. "Great. We'll come with." 

Brief terror, surprising in its intensity. "No." 

Yuusuke's eyes flashed. "Fuck you." 

"Yuusuke, the risk is too high…" 

"Don't." 

Kurama bit down on the rest of his sentence. 

"Don't you fucking patronize me," Yuusuke continued. "You failed your mother." Kurama flinched from the accusation. "But you get to make up for it. Give us that chance. " Yuusuke crouched so he could meet Kurama's gaze head-on. "Give us the chance to make it up to _you." _

Kurama considered him intently for a moment, and then smiled like a fox, sly with sharp teeth. "All right. But we've got to be quick." 

Yuusuke bounced up and punched the air above his head triumphantly. "Yeah!" 

Kuwabara answered the door, relief palpable when he saw them. "They're back!" he called over his shoulder. 

Shizuru appeared from the kitchen, followed by Jiro. "Both of them?" 

Kuwabara grinned and let them inside. "Yeah." 

"Ha!" The woman held an expectant hand under Jiro's nose. "Pay up, pal." 

"Man," Jiro whined and slapped a thousand yen bill into her palm. "Cheater. You had insider information." 

Shizuru just waved the bill at him unrepentantly. "I just know never to bet against Urameshi." 

Kurama noted a new arrival—Yukina, green hair shimmering like sea foam in the dawn light that framed her through a window. She sat on the couch next to Shuichi, who looked to be asleep, slumped sideways. 

"How is he?" he asked her. She smiled serenely, and he took that as a good sign. 

"Fine," she said, and picked up the boy's wrist to check his pulse. "He's just fine. It'll take a few days to work the poison out of his system, but I don't anticipate any complications." 

Kurama felt the relief of one less thing to worry about. "That's good." 

"So what's going on?" Kuwabara looked at Yuusuke. 

"We're going hunting." Yuusuke prowled into the room, and opened the closet to search through it. "Where's my jacket?" 

"For who?" asked Shizuru, holding Yuusuke's coat toward him as ransom for a straight answer. 

"Hatanaka," Kurama said, quiet as death. The whole room paused to stare at him, and he looked at his feet. 

"Right," Kuwabara cleared his throat. "Any idea of where to start?" 

"Mayaboshi Company headquarters in Tokyo," Kurama said.

Kuwabara nodded. "I think I know where that is."

Yuusuke grabbed his coat out of Shizuru's hands and then snatched at the keys, but the woman had already anticipated him and tossed them to her brother instead, who caught them in midair and shrugged into his coat. Yuusuke glared at both of them and they grinned back. 

"Let's go." 

~*~ 

"The problem with trying to sneak into someplace during broad daylight," Yuusuke said, "is that you kinda lose that whole cover-of-darkness advantage." 

They were hanging out in a small side street—more of an alley—across from Mayaboshi Company headquarters, Kuwabara and Yuusuke with hands deep in pockets and shoulders hunched against the biting cold. 

"Stop your bitching," Kuwabara said. "I'll go check it out." 

Before anyone could stop him, he crossed the street, timing the traffic with the ease of someone used to walking through a busy city. 

The sky was clear, and the buildings reflected it all the way down their glass-window fronts, like pillars of winter blue. Kurama didn't feel the cold much, couldn't feel much of anything except a vague wrongness at pursuing someone during the daylight hours. He wondered where Kuronue had gone off to. 

"Damn idiot," Yuusuke growled, slumping belligerently against a wall. "What the hell is taking him so long?" 

Kurama decided against pointing out that it had only been minutes since they'd lost sight of Kuwabara as he entered the building. Yuusuke hated waiting, and there wasn't anything anyone could say to change that. Besides, teasing flickers of blackfire aura in the back of Kurama's mind distracted him. 

Once, he would have been able to pinpoint Hiei's exact location and perhaps even his motivation if he was projecting loud enough, but now things were muddled. Kurama shared new links with Kuwabara and Yuusuke that hadn't sorted themselves out yet and that made reading any of them tricky. 

"There he is." 

Kurama focused again to see Kuwabara making his way back. 

"Hatanaka's not here," he said as he rejoined them, and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, handing it to Kurama. "He's at a warehouse, doing inventory. Apparently he's a real hands-on boss." 

Kurama read over the address, then handed it to Yuusuke. "I don't know where this is." 

Yuusuke shook his head in agreement. Kuwabara took the paper back with a despairing sigh. "You guys are useless. I know where to go. Come on." 

Warehouses, such as they were, were difficult to approach with anything resembling stealth during the day. This one was typical, surrounded by identical buildings on all sides. Except the Mayaboshi Company's warehouse was circled by a high fence topped by barbed wire. Beyond the fence was a wide courtyard with no cover. On either side there were docking bays. Kuwabara had parked across the street and now the three of them watched the warehouse for any activity. 

"It looks dead to me," Yuusuke said finally. "Are you sure you got the right address?" 

"I'm sure." 

Kurama leaned forward from the back seat. "What does the Mayaboshi Company manufacture, exactly?" 

"Electronics," Kuwabara reported. "Mostly exports. They have a sister company in England that handles all of their finances. The police have been keeping an eye on them. One of their partners was nailed for dealing in narcotics, but so far, they've been clean." 

"A squeaky clean record," Yuusuke said with a grin. "Always a sure sign that there's something shady going on." 

"I'll check it out." Kurama opened the door and stepped out. 

Kuwabara turned to catch him, saying, "Now wait a minute, Kurama, you can't—" But he found himself talking to empty air. Slouching back into his seat, he huffed softly. "How does he _do that? In the friggin' open?" _

Yuusuke just gave a grin of rueful admiration. "Well, he let us come along. It's not like he promised we could help or anything." 

~*~ 

Tekko Arashi stopped at Kuwabara's desk and frowned when she found it unoccupied. She turned and scanned the busy bullpen for her errant friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

"Hey," she said to a lieutenant as he passed her, "have you seen Kuwabara?" 

The lieutenant paused to consider this, then shook his head. "I don't think he's come in today," he said, and moved on. 

Sighing, she dropped the files she'd spent the morning trying to get released on his desk and unclipped her cell phone, hitting a fast dial number. It rang twice. 

"Kuwabara," he answered in clipped tones. 

"Where are you?" she asked without introduction, trying to keep accusatory annoyance out of her voice. "How can you help me if you're never around?" 

"Tekko-san…" 

"Don't start," she said, and propped her hip on his desk, folding her free arm in under her breasts. "You've been distracted all week. Did you know there's been another murder? I'll bet you dinner that you didn't." 

There was a moment of silence as he digested that. "Okay, okay. I owe you dinner." 

"Dinner and an explanation, buddy," she said, glaring at a passing co-worker who looked about to ask for a favor, and instead scooted past her quickly, avoiding eye contact. "I know this isn't really your case, but I think these killings and the Hazama kidnapping are connected somehow. I'm not sure exactly how, yet, but I could still use some backup here." 

"I think they're connected, too." 

Tekko paused on a breath, the next part of her snowballing rant on the tip of her tongue. "You do?" 

"Yeah. But I can't talk right now. Call me back in… three hours?" 

Her eyes narrowed. "Where are you?" 

"Following a lead." 

"Where?" she pressed. 

A soft sigh. "Look, I have to go—" 

"Why are you keeping me out of the loop on this?" she asked, trying to quell the sudden hurt that squeezed her chest. "What's going on?" 

"Listen, Tekko, I'm sorry, but I can't—wait, there is something you can do." 

She frowned. "Which is?" 

"Go to my apartment. Talk to a couple of kids named Shuichi and Jiro. See if they can remember anything about the Mayaboshi Company in connection to your victims." 

She straightened a bit at the name. "The Mayaboshi Company?" 

"Please." 

She sighed, knowing that when Kuwabara got stubborn the best thing to do was to just follow his lead for a little while. "All right." 

"Great. I'll meet you there in a few hours. I'll bring Thai." 

"This does _not_ get you off the hook." 

"I'll keep that in mind." 

She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at the phone, and instead snapped it closed muttering a grudgingly affectionate, "Jackass." 

~*~ 

Kurama followed the echo of voices across metal rafters that crisscrossed over a twelve-foot drop. Below him were tall stacks of packing crates. He wished for the reassurance of crow vision and a bird's eye view, vaguely unsettled by the wrongness of hunting during the day. 

However, his demon was well and truly awake, cold and calculating fury flexing claws, so very eager to deal out retribution to the man who had sworn to love and honor his human mother. Darkness rose, quelling unease. He was silent as he cat-footed across the beams. The human voices got louder, and the crates gave way in a long clearing, where a busy force of men were unpacking and repacking boxes full of electronics and… 

_Not drugs. Guns._

Kurama eased down into a crouch, eyes narrowing. There were nervous guards armed with semi-automatics pacing the area, and it would only be a matter of time before someone spotted him. He should head back to Kuwabara, tell him what was here, let him call backup. This really wasn't something he should be involved with. Then a familiar voice made his hands clench into white-knuckled fists and froze him to the spot. 

Below him, Hatanaka Sen stood with palm pilot in hand, eyes hidden behind the sheen of his glasses. Kurama could see his corruption clearly, now that he was looking. It was like black oil over the human's soul. 

How had he missed it—how had he _missed_ it? That sort of darkness, that worm-eaten core of evil at the center of the human's soul… How had that monster escaped his notice?

_Please,_ he pressed his hand to his chest and searched deep within. _Please let him be one of the names._

But of course he wasn't, so Kurama could do nothing but grit his teeth and ease muscles readied to attack. He stood slowly, and concentrated on breathing past the hate and anger. Then Hatanaka looked up at him and smiled. 

~*~ 

Yuusuke had confiscated Kuwabara's cell phone and was on the third level of Tetris when Kuwabara sat up sharply. Yuusuke looked up to see him staring out his window and followed his line of site, but there was only the warehouse, looking as empty as it had before. 

"Kuwabara…?" 

There was a black static shock beside his window and the rei gun was charged and ready at his fingertip before he even recognized the living shadow. 

"Hiei? Dammit!" He hit the window button, realized the car was off and flung open his door instead, stepping out onto the street. "What the hell was that?" he demanded. "Give a guy a little warning…" He noticed a coarse cloth bag in Hiei's hand that was dripping something blackish, and smelled a familiar scent that raised hairs on the back of his neck. Blood. "Uh…Hiei?" 

The fire demon finally looked at him. "Kurama's in trouble. Come on." He blurred out. 

"Wait!" Yuusuke called after him, wishing that, just once, Hiei would linger long enough for the delicacies of a situation to be explained. Of course, he also sometimes wished that Keiko had a gentler tongue, but that didn't seem likely to happen any time soon, either. 

Kuwabara was out of the car, locking his doors and checking his gun. Yuusuke couldn't help gaping until Kuwabara turned impatiently toward him. "What's the matter, Urameshi? Old age slowing you down? Let's move!" 

"But…but we can't just…They're _human." Kuwabara eyed him incredulously, and Yuusuke shut his mouth. "Right," he said, kicking his door closed and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, before walking around the car to join Kuwabara. "You're all insane." _

Kuwabara grinned. "You know that's why you love us." 

Hiei was a blur of black and glint of sword that paused briefly—not even long enough to solidify into shape again—at a bay door. A flash of sword, molten yellow streaks and sparks, and the door fractured, then exploded inward as Hiei blew past. Yuusuke and Kuwabara slowed to glance at the melted edges of metal as they passed through the doors. 

"Shit," Kuwabara said, awe and annoyance. "Could he be less subtle?" 

"Since when have we done subtle?" Yuusuke grinned and jumped into the lead. 

Kuwabara took out his gun and ducked through boxes, as Yuusuke climbed on top of them and picked out a more direct route. Hiei was nowhere to be seen, but ahead there were sounds of screaming and bursts of gunfire. Yuusuke tracked the sound until the boxes gave way to a clearing. 

He took stock: Hiei a murderous streak of black; Kurama with a thin sliver of black-crystal sword; man with glasses avoiding Kurama's attacks as easily as if their battle were choreographed; Kuwabara skidding around the corner, gun ready, using boxes as cover; various men with automatics. 

_Live ammunition, something whispered, curled and fearful in his mind. Youki and reiki were one thing. Fists and feat were another. But guns were something else altogether, and Yuusuke balked at it. _

Then he scoffed, gritted his teeth, and dropped down on two men who'd escaped Hiei's wrath and were taking aim at Kuwabara. He was aware of the guns as they clattered to the floor, as he kicked one man in the head and right hooked the other. They were still at the edge of his awareness as he spun and dropped the man creeping up behind him with a heel to the side of his knee. 

Then someone caught him by the collar and threw him down, landing on top of him. He lashed out before he even registered Kuwabara's, "Shit! Get _down!_" 

The world fractured in a bright explosion. 

~*~ 

Time slowed to a stand still as Hiei sped up. Edges of fire and smoke burned in a frozen starburst as he grabbed Kurama around the waist and lifted him clear into the rafters. It wasn't until after the bomb had exploded that he wondered if maybe he shouldn't have grabbed Urameshi and The Idiot as well. 

"Hiei!" Kurama snarled, struggling. 

Hiei set Kurama down and backed off. Kurama was darkness and rage, the edges of the hilt on his strange sword cutting into his palm. Blood dripped down Kurama's fingers to the metal beam. Hiei didn't quite know what he was anymore, because he didn't really feel like Kurama, and his aura was wrathful, sparking and leaping like lightning, wild in his eyes. 

"I _lost_ him!" Green eyes accused Hiei of the crime, not really seeing him as anything more than an obstacle. On the ground, fire uncurled, a nest of sinuous snakes across wooden boxes as Urameshi and The Idiot lay dazed on the ground. 

Then Hiei caught the edge of another aura leaping at the periphery of his awareness, this one oil-slick and purple madness. Kurama sensed it, too, head whipping around, eyes narrowing. He was gone before Hiei could say anything, coattails rolling smoke in their wake. 

Hiei gritted his teeth and dropped next to Kuwabara and Yuusuke. The Idiot was sitting up, wincing with pain. Hiei looked around at the creeping fire that hissed to him quietly. He soothed it and it died to a smolder. 

"The human authorities will be here, soon," Hiei said. 

"I'll take care of them," Kuwabara said, rubbing his shoulder. Hiei glanced at Yuusuke, still unconscious. Kuwabara followed his look and grimaced. "I've got it covered. Just go, already." 

Hiei nodded, and the world slowed down again. 

Outside, it was easier to follow the slick sickness of the alien reiki than Kurama's wildly fluctuating signature. When he found them, they were frozen in an arcing aerial battle, Kurama in a point of descent, sword close to his chest for a straight thrust, the glasses-man crouched and waiting. 

Hiei got close enough to see what Kurama, in his blind battle-hunger, probably had not. The man was smirking. He looked as if everything were going exactly to plan. 

Hiei took in a quick calculation of the surroundings. They were on the docks in broad daylight. There were people everywhere. The fire demon knew a disaster when he saw one. There wasn't much he could do to contain the situation, and he was running out of distance to think. He made a decision. 

He blindsided Kurama with enough force to slam him into the ground. The world returned to real-time as he felt Kurama's bones crack, arm and ribs, but forced himself not to worry. The thin, black sword spun out of sight. Kurama was incoherent in his fury, struggling without method or finesse. Hiei closed hard fingers around Kurama's throat, found the windpipe and jugular and _squeezed._ He could only hope that there was enough of Kurama's consciousness left to recognize him, to not kill him. 

"Well," the man said, resettling his glasses, fingers splayed to partially hide his face. "This is an interesting development." 

"Back. Off," Hiei growled. 

The man's face dropped into lines of cool indifference, but Hiei could read him well enough to sense anger. "This has nothing to do with you." 

Kurama jerked, hand closing on Hiei's wrist, nails digging in. Hiei pressed harder on his throat, willing him to _stay down_. "Does now." 

The man's eyes narrowed, and Hiei wondered who he thought he was intimidating. Hiei let his power flare, true demon stretching just under his skin. The dragon burned on his arm and wanted to wake. He couldn't release it for fear of losing control. The risk was too high, but oh, the dragon was eager. 

"Leave," Hiei said. "Now." 

Anger was sudden and ugly on the man's face. "He can't always hide behind you." 

Hiei remained unimpressed. "We'll see." 

The man growled, but took a step back, opened a pocket dimension and blipped out. Hiei frowned, wondering where a human had picked up a demon trick, but was distracted from his musings when Kurama kicked him in the head. 

He rolled with it instinctively and to his feet, hand automatically grabbing for his sword. He froze when he grasped nothing but air. Kurama stood slowly, painfully, Hiei's sword in hand. The fire demon noted how quickly the bruises on his throat developed and then faded away. Then Hiei watched the point of his own blade swing in a slow arc, coming to rest facing him. Pointing down, so not overtly hostile, but certainly not friendly, either. Kurama's expression was flat, unreadable. 

_Think fast, Hiei. That was easy. It was the speaking that would be difficult. _Just tell the truth._ _

"I couldn't let you kill him," he said quietly, keeping still and watching his sword. "He was smiling. He _wanted_ it." Finally, he looked away from slender steel and into green eyes even sharper. "Besides, what would have happened if you'd killed him? He's not on your list, is he?" 

A corner of Kurama's lips turned down, but his eyes crinkled around the edges—a good sign. With a snort, he tossed Hiei his sword and said, "You've been talking to someone."

Hiei caught the sword with one hand, pointing up to a large crow circling overhead with the other.

Kurama glanced up. "Traitor," he groused.

Hiei was restless in the open. "We should go. Follow me."

"You're too fast."

Hiei was unsympathetic as he turned and leapt easily to the roof of the nearest building. {_Just keep up_.}

~*~

They landed in a large garden, private and gated, and hid in a small, enclosed nook of bushes and old Sakura trees. Kurama knew Hiei had chosen the spot to put him at ease, surrounded by so much greenery. He could hear the earth breathing around them quietly, and closed his eyes to listen. But now he knew he could stop that breathing with the barest thought, and it made him nervous, edgy.

Hiei glared as the crow landed nearby, nearly at eye level. "I don't want him here."

"He can listen in, regardless."

The headband came off with a flick of fingers and Hiei's third eye gleamed a flat purple. "No he can't."

Kurama didn't feel but a faint echo of the mental booting Hiei delivered, but it still left him dazed. It dropped the crow like a stone. Kurama watched it only long enough to make sure it was still alive.

"That was cruel," he said without much rancor.

The fire demon shrugged, unapologetic. And then they were left staring at each other, Kurama struggling to find something to say that wouldn't sound too dramatic or childish.

{_You don't have to pretend that it's not completely different. You don't have to pretend nothing has changed._}

Kurama frowned, and his fingers traced the cuffs of his sleaves nervously. "I never wanted to hurt you."

{_I know. That's what hurt the most._}

Hiei sheathed his sword, then plucked at his coat to resettle the folds. He hadn't changed much in six years. The others had grown up, filled out. Their voices deeper, their eyes a little wiser, their movements more wary. But Hiei was a moment frozen in time. Kurama realized he had no idea how fire demons aged, but he knew that watching Hiei made his throat ache. He looked away.

{_The man you wanted to kill. He smelled human but felt like a demon._}

Kurama wrapped his arms around himself and stared hard at a leaf, memorizing the details, the pattern of veins through its sunlit surface. He deliberately ignored the white noise that threatened to overtake his hearing.

{_Kurama?_}

He couldn't get past it enough to speak. He knew why Hatanaka's aura felt inhuman, but he also knew that he wasn't about to tell the volatile Hiei. Besides, it was still his fight, and it felt too close to weakness to ask another for help.

{_I can kill him for you._}

"Don't." The word was more guttural growl than anything else, deep and grinding against the back of his throat.

Hiei waited with the patience of someone who hadn't aged in six years. 

"He's mine," Kurama said, finally. "I'll deal with him." 

In their time apart, Kurama had somehow forgotten Hiei's speed, but he remembered abruptly when the fire demon was next to him, suddenly. Hiei's hand stopped just short of touching Kurama's cheek, but still the kitsune reeled, struck by Hiei's aura, like a negative star, steeped in blood and violence and so hot/bright it could turn a soul to a wisp of vapor. 

—_{Don't come near me don't go far away shining sword and darkest fire soul full of bright/dark want and need and guarded innocence like the green-haired girl so adored who knew she could see so much more with only two eyes than I can with three? And what else is there left but to ease darkness in darkness until there is no painful light}_— 

Something shattered, loud and crystalline in the stillness. Kurama panted, trying hard to regain his balance, and realized that he'd touched a branch as he'd flinched back, and it had blackened and broken off, cracking apart on the ground. 

{_You can't even let him touch you without falling apart._} 

"Shut up," Kurama ground out, fighting for control. He took a step back to distance himself from the raw feeling Hiei's presence agitated. "It's different when I'm fighting. I can focus—" 

Words cut off abruptly, unable to speak through the sudden shortness of breath and awareness of a blinding pain, up under his ribs, dropping him to his knees. He put a hand to his mouth and coughed blood. 

{_To the exclusion of all else._} Hiei cleaned his dagger and resheathed it. 

"You _stabbed_ me." Kurama was wide-eyed and incredulous. He stayed on the ground, though the healing factor had kicked in almost immediately and repaired the deep wound before he could die from blood loss. 

{_Yes._} Hiei might have been amused, if his eyes hadn't been so serious. 

"Little bastard." 

{_I've been called worse. If it saves you from your own idiocy, I'll suffer insults gladly._} 

Kurama grinned slightly. "You'll regret your generosity." 

{_Kurama. I had given up hope of ever hearing you again. I don't care what you call me, as long as you stay around long enough to say it._} 

"Don't say such things." Kurama tried for humor, the Yoko in him determined to tease the fire demon for his sudden poetry, but it came out too quiet, the attempted smile too pained. "You're like to break my heart."

{_We'll be even, then._}

Kurama could only stare at him, feeling something empty open in his chest. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, unable to stop from saying it even though he knew it was foolish. 

Hiei glared at him, as if implied pity just leant more insult to injury. 

"Don't do that," Kurama said quietly, turning away. 

{_You asked Yuusuke to help you and you haven't said a word to me._} 

"It's not like that. I didn't really _ask_ him, he just demanded to help and I…" 

Hiei's fire-bright aura burned a hole in Kurama's awareness like an afterimage of the sun. Kurama hugged his arms to his chest and hunched his back. He didn't want to finish the sentence, didn't know how to finish it, but Hiei seemed to be waiting for something. 

"I needed someone. He was there." 

{_Kurama…_} 

"He was _there_, Hiei." 

Even as he said it, Kurama knew it wasn't really fair. Wasn't really the whole story or even half of it. But Hiei didn't believe in spontaneity of actions, or complexity in emotions, or the answer "Because it just _happened._" 

Hiei was silent, and though he didn't move, Kurama could feel him withdrawing, pulling back. It was like being pushed away from a fire on a cold night. 

{_Kurama…_} 

Hiei's presence shifted closer soundlessly, suddenly. Kurama bowed his head and had to clench his fists to keep from retreating. 

{_Do you blame me?_} 

It was asked so quietly, a breath of thought brushing against the small hairs of his mind. And he jerked, startled to cold stillness. 

"Blame you?" 

{_For your death._} 

That was enough to make Kurama turn, when he thought nothing would move him again. He stared at Hiei, who stood studying something to his far left with an intensity that meant all his focus was actually on Kurama. 

"Hiei…" Kurama reached out, hand brushing against the edge of blackfire warmth, inches from Hiei's shoulder. But something in his hesitation must have been misinterpreted, for Hiei retreated so quickly that the brush of his coat against Kurama's hand burned. "HIEI!" 

_Hiei! He tried to catch the fast-fading edge of the fire demon's telepathic signature, but it was closed to him. The sky above him was winter-blue, the trees dormant and empty. _

~*~ 

Tekko was cursing her affinity for cigarettes after ten flights of steps up to Kuwabara's apartment. She also spent a good deal of time hating Kuwabara's elevator, which was broken. And then, for good measure, she held a general annoyance for the rest of the world. Finally reaching the last step, she shoved viciously against the door leading to his floor, but the springs prevented it from hitting the wall and she felt cheated. 

Having never actually been to Kuwabara's apartment before, she'd found his apartment number on his mailbox. But as she entered the hallway, she realized she needn't have bothered. She deduced Kuwabara's door was the one surrounded by suspicious-looking men in black business suits. His luck just tended to run that way. 

She leaned against the doorframe to catch her breath, and watch them. There were seven of them, and they were milling, like confused bugs before a glass window, unable to comprehend the barrier in their way. They wore suits so crisp and unwrinkled they looked more like smooth paint than cloth—midnight black with a sheen of blue and stark white shirts. They looked generally European, she thought. All had the same cut and color of hair—buzz-short, caught somewhere between dark blond and brown, body-builder shoulders. Ex-military, she judged. 

One bent to examine the doorknob. As Tekko drew herself up and eased forward, he sniffed it curiously. Then, a long, pointed tongue slipped out of his mouth and touched the doorknob questioningly. 

She wrinkled her nose and took out her gun. "Police! Freeze right there!" 

They turned as a unit and looked at her. Something in their empty gazes made her steps slow a little, and she squinted. She couldn't be certain from this distance, but she could swear that the dark of their eyes expanded to cover the white and absorb the pupil. Tightening her grip on her gun, she continued her cautious approach. 

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" she demanded. 

The one who'd licked the doorknob opened his mouth, but instead of speaking, his square jaw dropped deeper, dislocating, lower teeth growing and arcing outward in sharp points. A deep, guttural sound issued from his throat, and his shoulders hunched violently with the crack of reforming bones. 

Tekko's mind took several things into consideration at once: she was facing a civilian who had yet to bodily threaten her, so even though she wanted to squeeze the trigger until she ran out of bullets, her deep-seated training against shooting without sufficient reason made her hesitate; she had no idea how she was going to explain this one down at the precinct; her instincts had always been good—not infallible, but still good—and right now they were telling her that she was facing something wholly inhuman and quite possibly pure evil; finally, she decided, she was never _ever_ doing Kuwabara a favor again. 

They were all transforming, as if created from more malleable stuff than bones and flesh. In the moment they surged toward her, instinct kicked training in the head. She opened fire. Ten bullets later, they were still standing. They reacted to being shot the way most people reacted to getting hit with water. A little flinch and a moment of inconvenience and that was all. 

"Shit," she snarled, backing up as she ejected her clip and reached for another to reload, though something in her realized that it wouldn't do any good. 

The first one reached her before she could slap the clip into place. She cracked him across the face and then ducked under his punch. Whirling, she snapped the blade of her foot into another one's knee. He collapsed and she jumped over him and punched a third in the face. Elbow to the solar plexus took out the next one. She turned, grabbed his arm and threw him into another one. 

The seventh grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, slamming her into a closed door. His long nails scratched her skin as he wrapped his fingers around her neck. She grabbed his wrist and dug her fingers in, twisting, but she might as well have been fighting granite. He leaned in and she could see his eyes were black without whites or pupils, empty and endless and she could smell sulfur and charcoal. 

Then the door behind her opened, and they both dropped backward into an undignified heap. 

"Get off my lawn!" a woman's voice demanded above her. 

Someone grabbed Tekko's arms and pulled hard, separating her from the man, dragging her further into the room beyond the door. There was screaming—inhuman, distorted so it almost sounded more like a machine being gutted, rather than anything living. Then a door slammed and there was silence. 

A boy with bleach-blond hair let go of her arms and leaned down to look at her. "Are you all right?" he asked. 

"Nothing's broken," Tekko answered automatically, sitting up. She wanted to crab-crawl across the ground, to put as much distance between herself and the door as possible, but made herself hold still. "What _were_ those things?" 

"Monsters," a crisp, female voice told her. "Some type of zombie, I think." 

A tall woman in browns leaned against the door. She was dressed in fawn-colored slacks, an ivory men's shirt, a tan tie and chocolate-colored vest. Her hair was lanky and mud-toned. She was pale and looked tired, but still solid, as if she could buffet any wind and still be standing afterward. She lit a cigarette and raised an eyebrow at Tekko's gaze. 

"Monsters," Tekko parroted. 

"Nasty ones," the woman confirmed. 

"I just brawled in the middle of the hallway with _monsters_." 

"And took down six out of seven," the woman said as she exhaled a mouthful of smoke. "Not bad." 

"Thanks." Tekko stood up and looked around. The apartment was decently sized. There was a painting of fruit in a basket on the wall. There were files and papers stacked on the coffee table and in the kitchen on every available space. "Miss…?" 

"Kuwabara," the woman answered. Tekko blinked and looked at her more closely. "Kuwabara Shizuru." 

"Wife?" Tekko asked automatically. 

The woman curled her lip in distaste at that suggestion. "Sister." 

Tekko supposed she could see the resemblance if she squinted—in the stubborn line of Shizuru's mouth and set of her jaw. Kuwabara had never spoken of his family, but, then, he rarely spoke of his personal life. 

"Should you be smoking?" the boy asked. 

"Bite me." Shizuru took another deep draw on the cigarette to emphasize her point. 

"And you are?" Tekko asked him. 

"I'm Jiro." The boy beamed as if his very existence were cause enough to be happy. 

"Who are you?" Shizuru asked, dropping her cigarette into a coffee cup sitting on an end table beside the door. She pulled out another and lit it. Tekko found herself staring at it with a deep craving. 

"Tekko Arashi. Can I have one of those?" 

Shizuru looked vaguely impressed, and tossed her a cigarette. "Kazuma's friend from the precinct?" 

"Yeah." She held out her hand for the lighter. 

Shizuru finally pushed off the door, pausing to light Tekko's cigarette as she moved into the kitchen. Tossing the lighter on the table, she pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. 

Jiro followed Shizuru and began hunting through the cupboards until he discovered a box of cereal. Leaning against the countertop, he stuffed a handful into his mouth and munched happily. It reminded Tekko that Kuwabara owed her dinner, and she hadn't eaten anything all day but half a bagel for breakfast. 

"What are you doing here, Tekko-san?" Shizuru asked, cool but polite. 

"I was promised dinner," Tekko answered. "Er. I mean, I was supposed to question two boys about their knowledge of the Mayaboshi Company." She looked at Jiro. "I'm assuming you're one of them." 

Jiro shrugged, and spoke around the cereal in his mouth. "I don't know much, but I'll help you if I can." 

Tekko nodded. "I'm sure whatever you can give me will be—" Her voice cut off when something solid slammed into the door with enough force to make the coffee cup rattle. "But maybe I should deal with those…things, first." She jerked her chin at the door. 

"Don't worry," Shizuru said, handing Jiro the bottle of water. "They won't get in." 

"How can you be so sure?" 

"Because I'm keeping them out." The way she said it, and the way the copper in her brown eyes gleamed for just a moment made it seem a very dire threat indeed. 

Then the door took another impact and shuddered. Shizuru whitened, her lips tightening into a thin line. She moved to the sink and scrounged in the cabinet underneath, coming out with a short sword. Some sort of runic design ran up the middle like a spine. She handed it to Jiro, who had to juggle his cereal and water until he had a hand free to take it. 

"Try to take their heads off," she advised. 

Jiro nodded with a humorless smile, and moved past Shizuru, disappearing down a hallway into a room, shutting the door behind him. Tekko watched him go and wondered about the weight in the air. It was as if they were all standing by a sickbed, waiting for someone to die. Yet the two of them were dealing with the situation so calmly that she could only follow suit. 

Shizuru voice was like a splash of cold water. "I've called for backup. They should get here, soon." 

The door shook again. The coffee cup fell off the table by the door and bounced on the ground, dribbling old coffee and wet cigarette ash in an arc. 

Tekko picked her gun up off the floor and reloaded it. "How soon is soon?" 

Shizuru shook her head. 

"Is there another way out of this place?" 

"Besides the ten story drop out the window?" Shizuru exhaled smoke. "No." 

"Where's your phone, then? I'll call backup." 

"I don't really think that'll help." Shizuru sprawled into a kitchen chair and tucked her hair behind her ear. She sounded weary, and Tekko noted the lines of stress deepening around her eyes and wrinkling her brow. 

"Why not?" 

The wood of the door crackled in protest on the next impact, bowing a little. 

"No one will get in. Frankly, I don't know how _you_ got in here. There's some sort of barrier spell around the building. I can feel it." 

"But then how will _your_ backup—" 

The door swung inward with a crash, flying loose of one hinge. Shizuru flicked ash from her cigarette onto the floor and looked unimpressed as the seven business-suited men flowed into the room. For a moment, they seemed more shadow than substance. Tekko set her jaw and took aim, waiting for them to solidify. 

"The fuck is all this?" a ringing tenor demanded from the hallway behind the men. They pulled back, parting into two groups on either side of the door, and revealed a compact man of medium build, hair gleaming like a raven's wing in the light. He took stock of the scene and grinned, shoving the loose sleeves of his leather jacket back from his hands like a man ready to work. "Oh good. Bad guys." 

Tekko recognized him as the smart-ass punk that hung around with Kuwabara once or twice every year and always managed to piss her off in the process. What was his name again? 

Kuwabara appeared next to him a moment later. "Urameshi, would you stop posing and just get to it, already?" 

"Hey," Urameshi protested. "Don't rush the master." 

"Master Moron," Kuwabara muttered, shoving him to one side unceremoniously. Tekko blinked when a white-gold sword of light with a sharp orange edge blazed to life from his clenched fists. 

The seven reacted instantaneously. Tekko flinched as they screamed—high, searing wails like machines in pain—and flung themselves at Kuwabara and Urameshi. Kuwabara sliced the first two in half with one swipe. They divided like torn oil, features flattening paper-thin, blackening and dissolving away. The third proved little more trouble. The fourth went the same way just as quickly. 

After a moment, Tekko put her gun away and went to sit at the table with Shizuru, who offered her another cigarette. 

"REI GUN!" 

Sudden blinding white-blue light from Urameshi's part of the hallway seared her retinas, forcing her to look away. When her vision returned, Kuwabara was standing alone, looking a bit singed. 

"Dammit, Urameshi!" Kuwabara squawked. 

Urameshi strolled past Kuwabara without apology and into the apartment, looking pleased with himself. Then he froze as he saw her. 

"Uh… hi there," he said, "normal person." He turned a glare on Shizuru. "That I wasn't _warned_ about." 

"I was preoccupied," Shizuru reminded him with a sneer, and flicked more ash on the floor. 

Tekko lit her cigarette and waited for an explanation, which was sure to be spectacular. 

"Besides, she's cool," the brown-haired woman continued. "She's Kuwabara's partner." 

"We're just friends," Kuwabara and Tekko corrected automatically in unison. 

Urameshi rolled his eyes. "Whatever. The important question is—who the hell were those guys and what were they after?" 

Kuwabara stepped into the room, and something gritty scraped under his foot. Bending down, he picked up a strip of scorched paper that had kanji on one side. "This should help answer that." He held it up for Urameshi's inspection. "Paper servants." 

Urameshi frowned. "I've never seen paper servants that powerful." 

"Paper servants?" Tekko spoke up. She was ignored. 

"Can you read any of that?" Urameshi asked Kuwabara, indicating the kanji. 

Kuwabara squinted at it, then shook his head. "This one almost looks like 'death,' but it has an extra line. And this one could be an upside-down 'river.' But other than that, no." 

Jiro stuck his head around the corner and considered the situation. "Is it safe to come out, now?" 

"Safer than usual," Shizuru muttered. 

"Hey," Tekko tried to cut in. "Paper servants?" 

"Were they after us? Or were they looking for Kurama?" Kuwabara wondered, glancing at Urameshi, who shrugged in return. 

"It's not like we can ask them." 

"This is bad," Kuwabara continued. "If they _are after Kurama, who has he tangled with that can cast kekkai and throw away seven high power paper servants on an errand?"_

"And if they _aren't_ after him," Urameshi said, "who have _we_ tangled with that can cast kekkai and throw away seven high power paper servants on an errand?"

"Kekkai?" Tekko queried, voice sharpening with frustration.

Jiro prowled past her, holding the sword Shizuru had given him earlier. Kuwabara spotted it.

"What are you doing with that?"

Jiro looked at him, wide-eyed, and the pointed accusingly at Shizuru. Kuwabara turned on his sister, who shrugged.

"Hey, if you leave your weaponry lying around, you can't come crying to me when I put it to good use."

"That's for Rekai Tantei use only!"

"Rekai Tantei?" Tekko parroted, helplessly.

Shizuru rolled her eyes. "How long has it been since you touched any of the Rekai Tantei stuff? I'm surprised it isn't rusted." She took a drag on her cigarette, the flicked more ash on the floor.

"That's not the point and _stop smoking in my apartment_."

"Hey," Urameshi snapped, waving the slip of paper. "Can we get back on track, here?"

"Why's Shuichi's name on a piece of burnt paper?" Jiro asked curiously. 

"What?" Urameshi blinked. "Where?" 

"There." Jiro pointed to a singed corner, and Tekko frowned as Urameshi leaned down and squinted at the spot. 

"What do you know. It _is_ Shuichi's name." 

"What does that mean?" Jiro asked. 

"I don't know," Urameshi said and he exchanged a glance with Kuwabara. "But I know someone who might." 

"Genkai?" Kuwabara asked. 

Urameshi nodded. "Genkai." 

"Genkai?" Tekko echoed, trying to get a word in edgewise. "Who's—" 

"Shizuru pack some food—we don't know how long we'll be staying there," Urameshi ordered, all business. "Jiro, get Shuichi ready to travel." 

"I'll bring the car around," Kuwabara said, turning toward the door. 

"I'll come with you." Urameshi followed him. 

Tekko had had quite enough. "_Listen_—" 

"My door," Kuwabara bemoaned, looking at the damage. 

"Oh suck it up, Kuwabara," Urameshi said, brushing past him. 

The taller man glared. "Easy for _you to say. You won't have to explain this to my landlord." _

"HEY!" Tekko felt a brief and vicious triumph when the rest of the party turned and looked at her with startled expressions. "If someone doesn't at least _attempt_ to give me a reasonable explanation for all of this _immediately_, I'm not going _anywhere." _

Urameshi and Kuwabara exchanged another one of those maddening secretive glances. 

"She's _your_ problem," Urameshi told the taller man. 

"Tekko-san," Kuwabara began, in a tone of voice that told her there wasn't a reasonable explanation in sight, "I swear I'll explain everything when we have it all figured out. But, right now, _we're_ not even sure what's going on." 

Tekko folded her arms, unconvinced and unmoving. 

"Come on, Tekko-san," Kuwabara wheedled. "We're going to see someone who'll probably be able to put the pieces together." 

Tekko scowled. 

Kuwabara sing-songed. "I'll buy you diner." 

She was about to ask him what made him think some lame-ass attempt to bribe her would get him off the hook, when her stomach growled loudly. Narrowing her eyes, she dared him to comment, but he only gave her that damnably innocent smile. 

"Fine," she growled. "But this had better be one hell of a meal." 

Genkai spent most of her wizened mentor years avoiding trouble when she saw it coming. She preferred leaving messes to the younger, studier, more flexible generation. Their bones healed faster and they had a slim chance of breaking a hip just by slipping on some stairs. But something in the air that morning had told her trouble was going to be unavoidable. Tied as she was to the Makai and the Reikai, feelings like this were not uncommon, and usually right. So all she could do was head it off with a good pot of tea, or a bottle of sake. 

Halfway through her third bottle, she heard the clatter of careless feet running across her gravel yard. 

"Hey, old crone!" Yuusuke said cheerfully as he slid the temple door open with a bang. Then he gave a low whistle, and shoved his hands into his pockets as he prowled across the wooden floor toward her. "Three down already? You're starting early." 

Genkai categorized several things with a cursory glance over her former student. He looked as if he'd rolled down a hill of sharp rocks—roughed up and filthy. She smelled blood and gunpowder and singed hair. She braced herself for the bad news. 

Yuusuke crouched next to her and picked up the bottle of sake nearest her cup, peering into it. "Anything left?" 

"Not for you," she grumped, taking it back with a swipe of her hand that was quick enough to make him blink. She pointed to a small, plain teakettle on a tray with ten cups, sitting near the low-banked fire. He straightened and wandered over, feeling the kettle's side. 

"It's cold," he complained. 

"You're late," she told him tartly. 

Kuwabara's bulk cut a man-shaped wedge out of the light for a moment as he stood in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust. Genkai shivered as a solid kekkai enclosed the room. He moved a few steps into the temple like a man dragging weight, and was carrying something in a burlap sack that smelled strongly of a messy death. 

Genkai bristled at the foreign magic and frowned at the bag. "What's that?" 

Kuwabara paused, then looked down at it as if surprised to see it there in his hand. "What—this? It's a head." 

Genkai's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. "A head." 

"Yeah. Should I leave it outside?" 

"A head," Genkai repeated, hoping that clarification might prove her ears wrong. 

"Yeah," Kuwabara confirmed doggedly. 

"What is it doing here?" Genkai asked. 

"I couldn't leave it in the car," Kuwabara explained with an air of perfect logic. 

"Of course," Genkai agreed affably, though she couldn't stop a muscle in her cheek from ticking. 

"Look," Kuwabara sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. "I know it's weird. It's… a long story. Is there somewhere I can put it for now?" 

Yukina materialized at his elbow with a sweet smile. "I'm sure I could find some place for it." 

"Er." Kuwabara looked down at the diminutive ice maiden and colored slightly. "You shouldn't… I mean… It's a _head." _

Yukina just continued to smile as she took it from him calmly. "So?" 

"Er." 

"Don't be such a moron, Kazuma, she's a freakin' _demon_." Shizuru, smoking cigarette dangling from a corner of her mouth, shoved between the two of them. "They're not squeamish. Now move." 

She was carrying a large cooler, and by the way she walked Genkai guessed it was heavy. Clomping across the room, she set it down against the wall, then meandered over to the fire where Yuusuke was pouring tea into the provided cups. 

Yukina drifted past the doorway, heading for the storehouse, and a woman that Genkai had never seen before finished the trek across the yard to take Yukina's place. She had someone piggybacking, covered in a blanket so all Genkai could see were bare legs and feet, and a tuft of brown hair. She paused on the threshold, looking first at the gaping Kuwabara and then at Genkai and frowned. 

She had dark eyes, narrowed and naturally suspicious. Her mouth was the crooked line of the oft sarcastic, and her face was composed of hard, solid features. She was wearing black slacks and a navy blue winter coat. Her hair was cut short enough that only the edges could be seen under her knit hat. Genkai liked her immediately. 

"What's up?" The stranger directed her question and steady gaze at Kuwabara. 

"Tea," Yuusuke answered as he finished pouring into the last cup. 

"Tea?" the woman asked. She shifted her burden slightly and made no move to come in. 

"Apocalyptic tea," Yuusuke confirmed, holding up the kettle and rattling it a little. "You'll like it. Tastes…minty." 

"And does the world end if I don't?" she asked. 

"Naw," Shizuru explained, flicking ash from her cigarette into the fire and flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Whenever the shit's about to hit the fan, we all come to Genkai's to sit around drinking tea and discuss the end of the world. It's tradition." 

The woman looked at Kuwabara, who shrugged and smiled reassuringly. 

"Okay," she said, and stepped into the room. "Where can I put him?" 

Genkai had a sense of being invaded, of an army coming to occupy her temple, digging trenches in preparation for a battle. It was rather alarming, even if she'd had experience in dealing with this before. She did well to hold her face in a neutral expression as yet another new person—this one an exuberant boy with an obvious bleach job—came bouncing into the temple carrying two armfuls of bedding. 

"This way," Shizuru said, and lead both the bleach blond boy and the new woman out of the main temple and toward the smaller rooms, usually occupied by Yukina or Genkai or any of their frequent guests. 

Genkai didn't like the idea of strangers running around her grounds, even if she felt nothing dark about them. She looked at Yuusuke reproachfully as she lifted her sake cup to her lips, and pressed him with the silent weight of her questions. 

"Eh he hee…" Yuusuke grinned ruefully at her familiar look, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry we didn't give you advanced warning, Granny. Coming here was sort of an impulse." 

"An impulse." The flatness of her voice was a statement of disbelief. 

He gave her his best shit-eating grin. "Yeah." 

"An impulse with enough time to pack a cooler?" 

Kuwabara finished untying his shoes and kicked them off before coming to join Yuusuke by the fire. Her former student set the teapot down and faced her, hands loose fists on his thighs. 

"Listen," Yuusuke said, his dark eyes serious, the reflected fire lighting an inner spark. "We're worried about Kurama. I know you told us not to be," he added hastily, responding, she suspected, to the sudden hardening of her expression, "but we are. He's our friend and he's in trouble and we think he may have tangled with something out of his league." 

"What makes you think that?" she asked. 

Yuusuke took a neatly folded, singed piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. Even though the magic had been canceled, she could feel its lingering strength. 

"What is this supposed to mean?" she asked. 

"We were hoping you could tell us," Yuusuke said. 

She unfolded the paper with a flick of her wrist and studied the kanji designs. The strokes of ink were steady and delicate, written by a master's hand. After a moment, she set it aside and felt deep-seated trepidation leaden her chest. "It would take a high-powered priest to make such creations." 

"A priest?" Kuwabara frowned curiously. 

"This is not mere arcane magic. These are divine words, used in prayer. They have been corrupted." 

A wrinkle of worry formed between the eyebrows of her former student. Yuusuke knew that divine magic almost always meant more trouble. "How can you tell?" 

"They have been inverted and reversed. The ink has been mixed with blood." 

Kuwabara paled. "Human?" 

Genkai shrugged. 

Yuusuke's face had settled into hard lines. "Can you tell us anything else, Granny?" 

"Not with a simple slip of paper." Genkai dismissed it decisively and went back to drinking. 

"We think that whatever Kurama is hunting may actually be hunting him," Kuwabara spoke up, expression just as grim as Yuusuke's. "And I think that the missing persons case I've been working on is tied into it. May be the key to figuring out the pattern." 

Genkai set her cup down and folded her arms, still unwilling to be drawn into this, but curiosity piqued nonetheless. "Pattern?" 

"Look." The orange-haired man took a folded map of Tokyo and the surrounding suburbs out of his coat pocket and opened it on the floor in front of him. He turned it toward her and pushed it into better light so she could see the little Xs that were marked. Genkai frowned. 

"Do you recognize it?" Yuusuke asked. 

"It's a map of Tokyo," she told him dryly. 

"Granny, don't get snide," Yuusuke retorted. "The Xs. We think they're supposed to form a symbol of some sort." 

Genkai squinted and moved closer, kneeling in front of the map to give her old eyes a better view. Though bits and pieces of her succumbed further into old age every day, she could always rely on her memory. She reviewed her knowledge of arcane imagery. 

"There are at least fifty symbols I know of that could match this," she said, and went back to her sake. Hopeless causes and goose chases didn't interest her. 

Kuwabara leaned forward. "I don't think it's finished. I think there's at least one more point to go. Does that narrow it down?" 

She sniffed. "That just broadens the field." 

A sharp female voice spoke up from the back doorway. "What about the pictures?" 

The woman, whose name Genkai still didn't know, came back into the room like someone shoving her way through a crowd—full of violent and frustrated purpose. Shizuru was her sardonic shadow. 

Genkai was unimpressed, but she turned back to Kuwabara, making sure to keep her expression neutral. "Pictures?" 

Kuwabara reached into his inner pocket and pulled out an envelope, handing it over. Genkai opened it and pulled out a handful of photographs. Each one displayed a different symbol, carved into a victim's body. Memory never failed her, and the pictures kicked forward a sudden alertness. 

Yuusuke read the subtle shift in her posture. "Genkai?" 

"I know what these are," she said, low voiced, and began to lay them out. "This one was first—the dark moon?" She held up a picture for Kuwabara to identify. 

"Yeah." He looked surprised. 

She put it down on the floor deliberately. "The dark moon on the left palm. And then the serpent's eye, on the right shoulder." She placed another picture on the floor. 

"That's right," he confirmed, but she wasn't listening to him any more. 

"The sleeping eye on the left shoulder." She paused at the picture of a woman's arm. All of the veins had been opened with clean, skillful cuts. "And the roads on the arm. The beacon on the left breast and the waiting traveler on the right. The broken lock on the foot and death's hand on the stomach." She laid the last of the pictures out and considered them grimly. 

"So what does it mean?" Yuusuke damanded impatiently. 

"You're missing the gateway." 

"What?" Kuwabara asked. 

She looked up, and surveyed her guests coolly. "You're missing the gateway—the final symbol to open a door to the Makai. Someone is trying to summon a demon." 

_"What?" three voices chorused. _

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Genkai could almost enjoy the looks on their faces. Yuusuke looked like he wanted to hit something, Kuwabara like he didn't know how he always got into these messes and the new woman like she'd been caught in a comedy having memorized a tragic script. 

"A powerful one," Genkai elaborated, almost gleefully. 

"Not again," Yuusuke groaned, flopping over. 

"Wonderful," Kuwabara muttered. 

"You're kidding me," the woman said. 

Shizuru just smirked and lit a cigarette. Genkai had always liked Shizuru. 

"Listen," the new woman said, stepping forward. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we've got a homicide investigation here. Eight people are dead—more, if we include the victims in my case—and I was under the impression that you might know something useful. I know I'm not exactly up to speed about what's going on around here." She glared at Kuwabara. "But how are folk tales about magic and demons supposed to help us?" 

Genkai sipped her sake before looking up at the frazzled young woman. "Who are you?" 

The woman swallowed whatever she'd been about to say and frowned. "Tekko Arashi." 

Smiling her most pleasant smile, Genkai gestured at an empty spot on the floor. "I can tell you're under a lot of stress. Take off your coat, have some tea, sit down." The smile lost its pleasantness. "And shut up." 

Tekko sputtered indignantly, until Shizuru grabbed her collar and pushed her out of her coat. Tekko stumbled, and Shizuru disappeared through the back door again, presumably to put the coat somewhere. 

"Tekko-san, sit," Kuwabara advised. 

"But—" 

"Plant your butt," Yuusuke said with a glare. 

Tekko sat down and plucked the knit hat off her head, rubbing a hand through her flattened hair so it became a mess of loose curls. "Fine. There. I'm sitting." 

Genkai always enjoyed breaking in the newcomers. "Good for you," she said in her driest tone. 

Tekko glared at her. "So, is someone going to explain what's going on?" 

Kuwabara and Yuusuke exchanged a look while Genkai sipped her sake. She was old, and didn't have to explain herself if she didn't want to. 

"I guess it depends on how well you can suspend your disbelief," Yuusuke said finally. 

Tekko's eyes issued a challenge as she folded her arms. "Try me. I'll let you know if my head is going to explode." 

An hour later, they had resorted to sock puppets.

"Okay, say this is Koenma." Yuusuke held up his right hand, which had been sheathed in a sock. Shizuru had supplied him with a permanent marker so he could bestow it with Angry Eyes. " 'Hi, I'm Koenma,' " he said in falsetto, bobbing his hand in time to the words. " 'I'm a boob. And I'm also a god.' "

Kuwabara was laughing so hard he nearly choked, and sploshed tea over the flow charts they had tried earlier. The female police officer seemed less than amused. She'd held the same look of stoic disbelief throughout Yuusuke's rendition of the Three Worlds and their denizens.

"I think we're getting a bit off track," she said.

"Man," Yuusuke complained, "tough crowd."

Tekko finally quirked a small smile. "It's not that I don't appreciate the effort, it's just that—besides shaking the foundations of reality upon which I base my life—you haven't really told me anything useful. Let's just skip to the part where I accept all of the craziness you've told me and you explain how this helps us stop a serial killer."

"There will be only one more killing."

All three looked at Genkai, who had been silent since the explanation had started. Yuusuke noted she was wearing her "things are bad" look, which was much akin to her "I need more sake" look and her "my, isn't it a lovely day" look. Genkai really only had one look, with small variations on the placement of her eyebrows.

"Well, that's good, I guess," Tekko said. "Know when?"

Genkai took sip of sake. "Yep."

"What?" Disbelief from Kuwabara. "When?"

"Three days from now. Saturn will be in the Dragon's mouth, and the longest night will be upon us."

Yuusuke had always admired how Genkai could make anything sound dire. He pulled the sock from his hand and put it back on his foot, Angry Eyes up.

"It's like…demonic Tarot cards," Tekko muttered.

"So we know when. We still don't know where," Kuwabara pointed out, and dragged the map over to scowl at it.

"Maybe Kurama would know," Yuusuke suggested. It suddenly occurred to him that Kurama didn't know where _they_ were. Last time the redhead had seen them, they'd been in Kuwabara's apartment, and they hadn't left any sign indicating they'd relocated somewhere. Well, excluding the damaged door, which really didn't send the right kind of message.

"Kurama?" Kuwabara echoed.

"Yeah." Yuusuke turned toward him. "You know, maybe we should have…" What? Called him? Left a little sticky note? Yuusuke wondered what it would have said.

_Dear Kurama, _

_We wanted to move Shuichi someplace safer, where the bad guys would have a hard time finding us. So we've gone to Genkai's shrine. In writing this, we're assuming that all the bad guys can't read. See ya._

_Yuusuke_

But Kuwabara wasn't really listening. Instead, he put his thumbs next to each other and pressed his hands to the map, spreading his fingers out like wings. 

"Uh…Kuwabara? What are you doing?" 

"Shut up," he snapped, and picked up Shizuru's permanent marker, abandoned by Yuusuke's teacup. "I've got it." 

Tekko leaned over. "Got what?" 

"Look." Kuwabara began drawing lines between the points. "Wings, tail… It's a crow!" Kuwabara held up the map so Yuusuke and Tekko could see it better. 

"Maybe if you squint…" Yuusuke said disbelievingly, tilting his head to study the quick sketch from a different angle. "It's missing a head." 

"Yeah." Kuwabara turned the map back to him and frowned. "I'm guessing that's the last point." 

"But how do we know exactly where it'll be?" Tekko asked. "Or even the general location? We don't have any reference." 

"Do you have your case files here?" he asked. 

"In the car." 

"Think you could go grab any pictures you have of the Crow symbol?" 

"Sure." She got to her feet and trotted out, pausing only for her shoes before continuing down the path toward the stairs. 

Jiro padded into the room, looked around and apparently decided not to ask any questions. Instead, he knelt next to the teakettle and picked up two cups, padding back out again. Yukina picked up the teakettle and moved off to make more tea. 

"What I don't understand," Shizuru said, lighting another ever-present cigarette, "is how everything fits together—the people summoning a demon, Shuichi's father, the gun shipments, the crow… what do they all have in common?" 

"They all get people killed?" Yuusuke ventured. 

"What _are_ Crows, exactly?" Kuwabara asked, looking toward Genkai. 

"Souls returned from the dead for the purpose of revenge against those that killed them," Genkai recited in a bored voice. 

"Then maybe whoever's after Kurama…is someone Kurama's been sent to kill?" Yuusuke wondered. "Trying to save their own skin." 

"Do all Crows wear the same design of makeup?" Kuwabara asked Genkai. "Is that part of the ritual?" 

Genkai nodded. 

"Then we know that whoever killed Kurama knew about the Crow," Kuwabara said. "Remember—they cut his face to look like the make-up he's wearing now." 

"That's right," Yuusuke remembered, sitting up straighter. "And it wasn't just Kurama. Remember? It was those other people, too. Like, six or seven of them. Around the same time. They all had the same design cut into their faces." 

"And they all died…horribly." Kuwabara swallowed. "Tortured… their families…" 

Yuusuke felt something click into place. "Kuwabara, what do we know about ghosts?" 

Kuwabara frowned, blinking out of past memories. "They're discontent spirits. People who died so dissatisfied with their lives that they couldn't move on." 

"Right. And the Crow is like… the ultimate form of a ghost, right? Someone so cheated out of life that a Higher Power lets them come back to exact revenge." 

"Right…" 

"Well, put that together with someone going around killing people in terrible ways and marking them with the Crow symbols…" 

Kuwabara's eyes widened. "Someone was trying to create a Crow." 

Yuusuke nodded. "And they succeeded with Kurama." 

"But," Kuwabara protested, frowning, "why would someone deliberately create something that would be hell-bent on destroying them?" 

"Crows," Genkai said solemnly, "are not just power over death, but also over life. Their animal companions can resurrect spirits and imbue them with near-invincibility. Can you think of no evil soul who would desire such a thing?" 

"I can think of a crapload," Yuusuke said. "The hard part's going to be narrowing it down." 

"Who do we know," Kuwabara worked the problem out loud, "that knows Kurama and wants someone to come back to life?" 

"And how do Shuichi's father and the demon fit into this?" Shizuru put in. 

"Maybe they're trying to resurrect a demon soul," Kuwabara speculated. 

Genkai nodded. "Possibly." 

"Okay," Yuusuke said, "so how many dead demons do we know that know Kurama?" 

"A lot," Kuwabara concluded mournfully. 

"A lot of what?" Tekko asked from the doorway, pausing to kick off her shoes. 

"Dead demons," Yuusuke answered cheerfully. 

"Right," Tekko said without missing a beat. "Here are the pictures." She handed an envelope to Kuwabara. 

Kuwabara opened it and took out a picture of the most recent crime scene, where the Crow symbol had been burned into a brick wall. He set it down on the map and tried to line up the points. Yuusuke leaned over to see if they matched. 

"Too small," Kuwabara said, frowning. "If we could make the picture bigger somehow…" 

"We have a computer program down at the precinct that does that sort of stuff," Tekko offered. 

"There's a computer in the back," Genkai said. 

Yuusuke turned to gape at her. "Granny? You? Have a computer?" 

Genkai scowled and gave a defensive, one-shouldered shrug. "The damned ice maiden bought it. It wasn't my idea." 

"It was so shiny!" Yukina spoke up as she came back into the room, carrying the teapot. Her eyes were wide with innocent enthusiasm. "Like ice! And so alone in the display window…" 

Yuusuke wondered, not for the first time, how much of Yukina's child-like wonder was sincere, and how much of it was an act that kept her out of trouble. 

"Now it's all alone in the back," Genkai reiterated conclusively. "Gathering dust all over its shiny surface." 

"Anyone know how to hook up a computer?" Shizuru asked the room in general. 

"I do," piped a voice from the back of the room. 

Everyone looked to where Jiro leaned against the doorframe, dark eyes watching them curiously. 

"Where is it?" he asked in the silence. "I can set it up in five minutes flat." 

It actually took close to fifteen minutes, because Genkai hadn't even bothered taking it out of the box, or storing it in a room with electrical outlets. But once it was up and running, it was truly impressive—sleek, silvery plastic exterior, flatscreen monitor, tall, thin speakers, and a scanner/copier/printer. It took another fifteen minutes to install all of its extra software, before Jiro could scan the picture. 

Yuusuke watched impatiently as the kid measured out the points on the map and enlarged the picture accordingly, isolating the crow image and cutting out the background. Then Jiro darkened the lines and printed a copy. Taking the paper and the map, he taped the former on a window and then placed the map over it. The sunlight shining through the window made it possible to see the image of the crow overlaid with the map. 

"Ta da!" Jiro tossed a triumphant smile over his shoulder. 

Yuusuke moved forward, but Tekko beat him to it. She circled the area of the crow's head with a fingertip, frowning. 

"That's about a square kilometer of space," she said. "In the middle of the business district. It'll take time to find anything there. And we don't even know what we're looking for, exactly." 

"We'll know it when we feel it," Yuusuke said, practically bouncing. It had been far too long since he'd done anything constructive and he was starting to get antsy. 

"We can feel spirit-power fluctuations when we get near them," Kuwabara explained before Tekko could ask. 

"So…" The female police officer raised an eyebrow. "We're going to follow your Spider Sense to find the bad guys?" 

Yuusuke grinned, letting a hint of the demon shine in his eyes. "That's the plan. Let me know if you think of anything better." 

She rolled her eyes, but relented. "All right, that's fine for you. But how am _I_ going to find anything? What do I look out for?" 

Outside, the warm orange sunset light shifted suddenly into purple, and thick black rain splattered against the windows, clinging to the glass like tar. 

"Um." Yuusuke blinked, a chill shivering down his spine as his nervous energy compressed into alertness. "Things like that." 

The reiken lit in Kuwabara's hands, its glow clashing in sickly colors with the strange light. The orange-haired man braced and scanned the room, looking for something to attack. But, besides the sound of oddly solid rain hitting the window, it was eerily calm. 

"Urameshi? Where's it coming from?" 

Yuusuke stretched his senses. "I don't know. I can't pinpoint it." 

As Tekko pulled out her gun, Jiro reached out and hit a light switch Yuusuke hadn't even noticed on the wall. The room was bathed in the white-blue glow of fluorescent lighting that was hidden along the beams in the wall. 

"I can't see anything," Tekko hissed, as she tried to scan out the window. "Where is everyone else?" 

"I'll find them," Kuwabara volunteered, moving cautiously to the doorway. 

"No!" Yuusuke saw Kuwabara start at his sudden command, and blink at him. 

"What…?" 

The air was pressing in. Yuusuke could feel it, darkness hovering around his vision, full of sharp edges. 

"Oh shit," Kuwabara breathed, just before the edges coalesced and surged. 

The taller man went down first, the reiken dissipating as he fell to his knees and clutched his head. Before Yuusuke could move toward him, a sharp sound pierced his eardrums like a thin wire, and then ripped open a black tear in his head that poured a frothing foulness. He was drowning in sound, a rising discord. 

Yuusuke's demon blood responded immediately, white fire burning up his veins, and driving back the dark enough that he could see men in black push their way into the room. They were armed with rifles. Sharp alarm made Yuusuke shove stubbornly to his feet, though his center of balance kept shifting as if he were standing on violent water. 

It was difficult and painful to focus his reiki as he took aim, like pulling blood through his body backwards. Before he could call enough of it, one of the men raised his rifle and pulled the trigger. 

The impact hit him with enough force to make him stagger. As he looked down at the small silver shaft and red feather sticking out of his chest, all he could summon was a vague sort of resentment. What kind of demons ran around with damned_ dart_ _guns_? 

Then he passed out. 


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Still not mine.  
Chapter Summary: "Whatever grief you feel...it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won't bring anyone back." 

-Chapter 6-

Keiko kicked her feet as she sat at the stool and pretended she was ten, and everything was simpler. Her parents' noodle shop was a warm, bright haven around her, and the cold and dark outside made it all that much warmer and brighter. 

She stirred her ramen with her chopsticks idly and listened to her parents squabble in the supply room, which was located through a doorway behind the cooking area. She expected Yuusuke would be back soon. Or, at the very least, in contact with her--if he knew what was good for him. 

At least, that's what she kept telling herself. 

Keiko put her chopsticks down and stared into her cold noodles, as if hoping she could divine through them. A persistent, uneasy feeling had dogged her all day. However, time and experience had taught her that such feelings were best ignored. In most cases, there was nothing to be done for it, and Yuusuke always came back. 

And yet...there could be a time when he did not. And what would she do, then? 

Keiko pushed her bowl to one side and stood up, suddenly incapable of sitting still any longer. She took the broom out of a corner and began to sweep the floor. The shop was near closing time, and all the customers were gone. A few muddy footprints marking their presence had dried enough that she could brush them away. 

There was familiarity and rhythm in sweeping. There was a feeling of comfort and family in the room. There was a large black crow sitting expectantly outside the glass-front door. 

Keiko paused, and frowned at the creature. For all it seemed innocuous, there was something intrusive about its presence, as if someone had interrupted a conversation with a friend by shouting at her from across the street. 

And just because that was the first analogy that sprang to mind, her eyes flicked to the other side of the street, and caught a flicker of movement in the alleyway. Then she remembered when she'd last seen a crow, which wasn't a very common bird in Tokyo, and who'd she'd seen with it. 

_Impossible._

Still, there were so many things in her life that would seem quite impossible to someone else. 

Keiko put the broom back in the corner, and grabbed her brown winter coat. She put her hand in her pockets, and felt the cylindrical, solid stick that fit just into her palm--to make her fist stronger, Yuusuke had said when he'd shown her how to throw a proper punch. 

Opening the door to the winter night, she looked down at the bird expectantly. It cawed at her as if asking what the hell took her so long, and took to wing, feathertips brushing the ground as it arrowed its way to the alley. 

Putting her hood up to ward against the wind, Keiko crossed the street, following the path of the crow. She kept her strides quick and easy, but eyed the dark corners of the street. She knew how easy it could be to confuse friend and foe sometimes, and kept alert. 

Kurama smiled slightly as he stepped into the light, tentative, stance open and non-threatening. Until the moment she saw him, she realized that she hadn't really expected to find him there. Not really. Not when he'd been gone for years. 

_Years!_ she wanted to shout at him, but pulled in a breath, held it, and managed not to do anything more than stare. 

He stepped back into the darkness of the alley, and Keiko had a brief, somewhat hysterical thought of old spy films--conspiracies in the shadows. She followed him and managed not to giggle. 

"So," she began, and then couldn't find anything else to say. 

For a moment, they stood with bare inches between them, their frosted breath mingling. She looked him over, some small part of her mind still expecting him to vanish, as ghosts were supposed to do. 

He was silent, waiting with a polite air, as if knowing she needed to collect her thoughts. And that, more than anything else, confirmed who he was. Kurama, always courteous, even in bizarre situations. 

"It _is_ you." There was a strange quiver in her voice. She was almost embarrassed to hear it, and surprised when her sight blurred around the edges, dampness freezing on her lashes. 

"Don't cry," he said, sounding startled, eyes widening slightly. 

She sniffed and gave him a reproachful look, controlling the knee-jerk grief before it could develop. "I'm not going to. I've cried enough for you already." 

"I'm sorry," he said with genuine regret. 

She gave a short laugh. "You are the only one I know who would apologize for dying. Even Yuusuke... All he ever said was 'Hey Keiko. Long time no see.'" 

"Keiko..." 

She gave him a warm but impatient smile. "What do you want, Kurama? I'm sure you're not just here for my health." 

He gave her a look caught somewhere between guilt and relief, and cut to the business at hand. "I'm looking for Yuusuke." 

She thought for a moment. "They're not at Kuwabara's?" 

Kurama shook his head. Keiko felt the beginnings of worry tighten her chest, but staved it off with determination. "Have you checked Genkai's shrine?" 

Kurama blinked. "No." 

"Well, that's my first guess," she said, and added silently to herself, _And if they're not there,_ then _I'll worry._

He nodded and turned to leave. "Thanks, Keiko." 

Left behind again. Keiko couldn't really blame him, didn't really _want_ to be involved in the nitty-gritty of what Yuusuke did, and yet, she couldn't stop a moment's resentment. "Kurama." _Don't leave me here._

He stopped short and looked back at her. For an acutely embarrassing moment, she feared he'd somehow caught her stray thought. Then she steeled herself. She had the right to know _some_ of the details. 

"Is there something wrong?" she asked. 

He turned and faced her squarely, the hesitation in his expression clearing into honesty. "I don't know yet, Keiko." 

Which, she supposed, was the strictest of truth. "Keep me informed," she said, tucking her hands into her armpits and hunching her shoulders against the wind. 

"I will," he promised. 

She smiled slightly and then, impulsively, reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't be a stranger." 

He smelled of winter wind and leather, and something else sweeter--roses, maybe. And even though he hugged her back, and was solid and warm in the cold night, she could almost feel him slipping through her fingers like a handful of fog. 

"I'll try not to," he said, and it sounded like, "Goodbye." 

She let him go, stepping back and tugging her hood lower as she turned toward the noodle shop. "Okay, then. I'll see you around." 

"All right." 

She didn't turn for that last glimpse as she walked across the street, just kept her eyes on the lights shining through the windows and door of the noodle shop. Beacons back to her warm and comfortable complacency, where only the edges of the strangeness that ruled her husband's life touched her. 

For a moment, she imagined Yuusuke would be waiting for her when she stepped through the door, cheerily picking a fight with Kuwabara. She'd yelled at both of them and her parents would shake their heads indulgently behind the counter. Perhaps one of them could coax Kurama in from the cold. He was always so strangely hesitant around the three of them--Yuusuke, Kuwabara and Keiko--as if he feared intruding on something sacred. 

But that was a ghost desire, stirred up from old memories, haunting the uneasy feeling that had only grown stronger in Keiko's chest. She took a deep breath of freezing air and let the discomfort of it overshadow her restless thoughts. She would go back inside and ignore the pressing quiet, the sense of missing vital information. There was nothing else to do. 

Kurama felt the darkness hit him long before he got to Genkai's shrine. It curled around his ankles and slowed his steps, alive and hungry. He pushed on, regardless, worry tightening around him until it was nearly painful. Whatever was waiting for him at Genkai's shrine was not what he'd been hoping to find there. 

The palpable darkness made the journey up the steps seem longer. The cold air had an acidic quality, as if he were breathing in smoke. Memories touched him, sliding over his skin like oil. 

_--pretty bitch I like it when he squirms don't cry--_

He shook free of them, trying to hurry, knowing that the longer he lingered, the more likely he was to be buried alive here, in a nightmare. The power was familiar, now. Twisted with someone else, just as familiar, as hated. The crow was awake and hunting, but it couldn't see, he couldn't see. 

_--someone humming the first refrain of a lullaby, over and over again, and the rhythm sank into his bones, jarring him forward with every thrust and tearing pain he wouldn't cry--_

He fought his way free, running up endless steps, and the shadows became obscene things, tongues, flicking against his flesh as he fled. 

_Don't panic._

But his heart was beating too fast, and his breathing just wouldn't slow down, and the memories poured into his mind, unclean, cold. 

_--Hush little baby don't say a word and he wanted to scream, but couldn't, wouldn't make a sound--_

The top of the stairs almost took him by surprise. He sprang over the wooden plank entry and skidded to a stop in the gravel. 

_--Hush don't cry--_

He hadn't. 

"But you did." 

Kurama whirled toward the voice, lashing out with the edge of a hand, aiming for a killing blow. Darkness and nothing met his strike. He let the momentum spin him back toward the shrine and looked around, tense, waiting. 

Rolled up prayers tied to the branches of a skeletal tree whispered like dead leaves, but everything else was still. 

After a few suspended moments, Kurama straightened, and took a cautious step forward. The shrine was dark, abandoned. A cursory glance did not reveal any signs of battle, nor was there any sign of Yuusuke and the others. 

The crow called sharply as it cut out of the dark like a knife with wings, banked, and perched neatly on a branch above a thin man leaning on the shrine well. 

Kurama dropped back into his stance, sure that the man had not been there before. Though he stood half-concealed, and the shadows seemed to cling to him, Kurama knew immediately who he was. Between one moment and the next, lingering fear evaporated and his grass-blade sword settled into his hand. The figure's name flared to life in his mind. 

_Mayonaka Tama._

And the dulcet, repetitive notes of a children's song crystallized between them like frost. Kurama shivered, but the crow's focus wouldn't let him waver as he took a step forward, and then another. 

White slice of teeth as Mayonaka smiled and the song stopped abruptly, mid-verse. "Come to kill me?" There wasn't anything of fear in his voice or stance. 

"Yes," Kurama answered, taking another step forward. 

"What if I said you had to choose?" 

"Choose?" Kurama tilted his sword into a ready position. He wasn't particularly interested in conversations with dead men, but that wouldn't stop him from being polite. 

"Kill _me_ or save _him_." Mayonaka turned to look behind him, toward the main building of the shrine. 

Shadows evaporated, and moonlight fell like something solid on a form in the doorway, bound upside-down, arms dangling, fingertips brushing the floor. Kurama stopped, attention split, the vengeance-bound rage momentarily suspended by cold dread. 

"Shuichi..." he whispered. 

A pale, long-fingered hand closed around Shuichi's ankle, and slid slowly down his leg, to rest on his hip. Kurama felt his feral focus shifting toward whatever dared lay hands on his family. 

Hatanaka eased into view, the sheen of his glasses hiding his eyes. 

"So nice of you to join us, Kurama." 

Cold anger lit in the pit of Kurama's stomach. "Hatanaka," he growled softly against the wind. 

Hatanaka nodded unneeded confirmation. "Good evening." 

The man stepped forward until the moonlight illuminated mad purple eyes, set in a face far too bland and normal. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, slightly rumpled, which made him look like just another salary man coming home from a long day at the office. 

Kurama gritted his teeth, trying to see past the illusion. "Hatanaka, you..." 

Hatanaka chuckled, and stroked Shuichi's hip in an absent, almost loving gesture. "You know that isn't my name. Why do you insist on using it?" 

Kurama's throat constricted for a moment. To speak the devil's true name seemed to make it more real, but maybe, if he agreed to play this game, whatever it was, he could draw attention away from Shuichi. 

Steeling himself, he looked into twisted purple eyes. "Karasu." 

"That's better," the demon answered, in a sickly sweet tone that made Kurama's skin crawl. Karasu walked forward, and between one shadow and the next switched into demon form. Long black hair framed a mad smile. "We're really past formalities by this point, aren't we?" 

One moment he was across the yard, and the next his warm breath touched the back of Kurama's neck as he lifted the redhead's locks and let them slide through his fingers. Kurama froze, startled by both the touch and the evidence of demonic speed. For a moment, his mind emptied of every thought but one: he could not beat Karasu. 

Kurama had met and defeated Karasu once in battle, because Kurama had been dying and therefore Karasu had been arrogantly stupid. Karasu would not make the same mistake twice. So Kurama stood, indecisive and frightened beneath the caress of his adversary's sharp nails. 

"I knew it would be you," Karasu whispered in the dark, his hands settling on Kurama's shoulders, loosely around his neck. "I knew you would be the one to make it back." Karasu took Kurama's chin in hand and turned him around, eyes skimming over Kurama's features with a hunger that made the kitsune cold. "My beautiful Kurama." 

Kurama drowned in purple laughter, and the sound of Karasu's victims screaming in his ears. Karasu's touch was searing, cloying, hooks in his skin, pulling him forward. Kurama gasped, but could not seem to get enough air. 

His heartbeat sounded like the thundering of wings. 

Wings...and the whisper of dead prayers... 

_Kurama, snap out of it!_

Kurama jerked back, out of Karasu's grip. The freezing air, the here and now, slammed into him. 

"No," he said, and his sword flashed as it cut through the demon. 

Karasu shrieked, a high-pitched metallic sound, and his body smeared into a black smudge as it hit the gravel and faded, leaving a fluttering ribbon of paper in its wake. Looking at it, Kurama realized he'd miscalculated. 

Five more Karasus resolved out of the shadows, circling Kurama. The kitsune cut his way through them, trying to find the source, the end. But no matter how many he killed, more rose, indefinitely. A sea of pale faces, black hair and black clothes blending with the night. 

Kurama staggered as one flung itself at him and wrapped both arms around his waist, pinning his left arm to his side. He twisted, flipped his sword so it pointed down, and stabbed it through the top of the head. It crumpled, but the delay had been long enough to give the others an opening. 

A blow to his temple made him stumble to his knees. The sword spun out of his hand, and was lost as he rolled desperately, lashing out at anything vulnerable in a mad scramble to get back to his feet. 

One of the creatures grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked back. Kurama looked up into Karasu's twisted visage and stabbed him in the temple with a crystallized lily leaf. 

The creature dissolved. Overbalanced, Kurama fell, rolled as soon as he hit the ground, palms flat to push himself back to his feet, and something shifted under his hand with the sound of gritting dust. 

Kurama looked down and recognized the curl of paper with carefully scripted kanji on one side. 

It was a prayer leaf. 

The rest of the imposters died in a spectacular spiraling growth of bamboo trees that shot up from the ground and impaled the remaining shadow-Karasus before arcing up into the sky. Kurama stood up as black leaves rained down and struck the ground like brittle glass. With the paper clenched in one hand, he summoned another sword. 

The crow flew overhead, a dark shape among the black-crystal forest, and Kurama followed. 

The shadows were writhing, but Kurama plunged through them before they could solidify into more imposter-Karasus. He slid to a stop in front of the prayer tree. 

He put his entire weight behind the thrust that slammed through flesh and bone and sank several inches into the tree trunk. 

Mayonaka Tama reappeared, the moon out from the clouds, as his illusions dissolved around him. His hands scrabbled ineffectually at the sword that pierced the center of his chest, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. 

He looked at Kurama with hate-filled eyes, and grinned, pink-tinged teeth against the smooth lines of his face. 

Kurama stepped back, feeling power slipping through him like sand. His tie to the world would only last as long as Mayonaka remained alive, and that wasn't going to be much longer. 

The sword broke when he let it go. Mayonaka hit the ground as Kurama turned and stepped toward the shrine. He had enough time to cut Shuichi free. Once in the Reikai, he could speak to Koenma about finding the others, he hoped. 

Shuichi was unconscious, which was a small mercy, he supposed. Studying the wires holding Shuichi up only long enough to discern that what was left of his reiki was stronger than whatever created them, Kurama reached out to break them. 

Someone grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pressed him up against the wall of the shrine. 

Hatanaka smiled, mad eyes hidden by his glasses, though Kurama could still sense them. For a moment, his mind froze, unable to believe that Mayonaka had the power to keep one of his illusions functioning. 

"Hello, Kurama," he purred. 

Then Kurama knew. "Karasu." 

Not an illusion, but the real demon hidden in his stepfather's body, leaned forward with a smirk and kissed him. 

Churning, boiling _**hate**_ hit Kurama first, then _**lust**_ twisted tightly in _**pain**_ and followed closely by _**rage**_. He didn't want the images that poured into his mind, hot and poisonous, didn't want to know or see the things he was being forced to see and know. But he couldn't stop it, didn't have the strength, and the cacophony, the agony, was nearly enough to overshadow that sharp pain of 

Karasu 

stabbing him in the lung. 

Time stopped, for just a moment, when Kurama realized that there wasn't enough crow magic left to heal a wound so viciously deep. 

The next breath he drew bubbled. 

Karasu leaned forward and drank Kurama's blood from his mouth with death's stained smile. 

"So beautiful," Karasu whispered, lips tracing over the whorls of Kurama's ear. 

Kurama jerked, still trying to get away. His body shuddered, fighting the death it felt coming. His legs buckled, and Karasu sank with him, controlling their descent. 

"This is how I have always wanted to see you," the demon continued in spider-silk tones as he knelt on the wooden slats of the shrine's floor. "We are never so alive as at the moment of death." He stroked Kurama's hair back from opaque green eyes. "And I will hold you in my arms, savoring your last breath." 

Hands fisted in Karasu's suit jacket, ineffectual, residual strength trying to push him away. "No," Kurama whispered. 

When Karasu kissed him again, he shut his eyes and desperately thought of the one thing that might save him. 

_Hiei._

Karasu lowered him to the ground gently. Kurama opened his eyes to watch him pace over to Shuichi, still strung up like a fly in a web. 

"And this," Karasu said, grabbing a handful of Shuichi's hair and pulling his head back to bare his throat, "is my last gift to you." The claws on his free hand gleamed as he drew them back. 

_No!_

Kurama lurched forward, breath caught in his throat, every part of him screaming denial. His sight tunneled, but he rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward Karasu. 

"To watch this precious thing of yours," Karasu continued tenderly, "die before you do." 

_No!_

The claws flashed down, opening Shuichi's throat in a long, clean cut just under his chin, like a grotesque smile. Shuichi's blood hit the shrine floor, as hot and slick as Kurama's own blood, soaking into ancient wood. 

Karasu's face was upturned, rapturous, his human façade unable to hide the demon smile that burned into Kurama's mind. 

_I will not die._

It had been that simple before. It could be that simple again. 

Kurama's hands clawed on rough wood, splinters breaking under his fingernails. He willed his heart to keep beating. He willed hate to become like blood. 

I will not die. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, his connection to the crow reopened. And Kuronue, halfway to wherever guides went when the journey ended, turned, and winged back. 

_I will destroy you._

Kurama dragged one leg up, and then the other, gathering them under him, finding his balance to stand. He pressed his hand to the wound between his ribs, still bleeding. It was still getting harder to breathe. Still mortal. Kuronue wouldn't arrive in time. 

Kurama stood up, anyway. 

He ignored the shaking, dizziness, nausea, the freezing, stiffening, heavy cold of his limbs, and several instincts that screamed he shouldn't move, much less pick a fight, and took a step forward. 

Shuichi's blood poured down his chin and face, into his hair, dripping to the floor. Karasu let Shuichi's head go and lifted his hand to lick his fingers. Then he turned and smiled at Kurama, his expression open and alight, his eyes shining. 

The air changed color, light refracting differently, going inky purple with radiance burning up from the ground. Lazy, glowing lines spread out from Shuichi's blood, sliding restlessly over the wood floor, down the steps, over the gravel. Kurama placed a hand against a wall to catch his balance, and felt the night pulse, once, as if someone had plucked a very deep base cord attached to his sternum. 

The lines brightened--dark purple into red, and took sharp turns, and fantastical curves, weaving into more defined designs. 

The crow cried out defiantly as it broke through the light, and flew toward Kurama, who knew as he saw it that calling it back had been a mistake. 

The next pulse, and gravity seemed to strengthen. Kurama collapsed against the wall, panting and shaky, vision blurring. The crow landed hard, skidded, stumbled back to its feet. 

Karasu laughed very softly, sliding his hands through the puddle beneath Shuichi and smearing his fingers down his cheeks as he meandered down the steps. Kurama straightened, and made to follow. 

When Karasu placed his bloodied hands palm down on gravel, the ground beneath his feet screamed and ripped open, and Kurama knew--could see--that the lines had been tracing out a shape of a crow. 

Flicker of black by the prayer tree. In the sudden light of the burning lines, Kurama noticed it, a moment of purposefully moving darkness where there should only be flickering shadows. 

Hiei's sword was so fast, that it was nothing more than a flash of light. It cut through the air around Mayonaka, and the man, so nearly dead, fell into four separate pieces. 

It took Kurama a moment to notice a difference, to realize that he wasn't dying any longer. He didn't pause to wonder why. He straightened and leapt down the steps and toward Karasu, and was nearly blinded as the lines flared into walls of fire. 

Then everything was gone, and Kurama was left, standing stunned, in a silent shrine, the smell of blood and scorched earth slowly blown away by the damp-icy smell of late winter. 

He looked around wildly, casting with all his senses for any sign of Karasu, but there was nothing. He turned and looked at Hiei, who stood cleaning his sword by the tree, then back at the door, where Shuichi's corpse still hung, bleeding out slowly. 

His could feel his mind stall, then empty of all but four thoughts: there was no Karasu; the crow was gone; he had nothing coherent to say to Hiei; he didn't know what he was going to do with his brother. 

He looked at his feet, at the white stones with bits that caught faint moonlight and sparkled. Then the ground was coming closer. He didn't realize what had happened until his knees hit the hard rocks, and then he felt it best just to continue in the same direction. 

He fell sideways, curled loosely, head on the stones. One arm crooked so his hand lay in the direct line of his sight, and he stared hard until he could see all the tiny lines in his skin. For a long moment, there was no sound at all, just Kurama following the fine paths in his hand and letting himself think of nothing. 

Footsteps broke the silence, not as intrusive as they might have been, because they were quick and light and sure, and stopped just next to Kurama's head. 

"Kurama, what are you doing?" Hiei asked, somewhere above Kurama's prone body. 

Kurama's first, gut response was a vicious, _Get away from me. I'll kill you._ Because, at that moment, if he'd had the ability, he would have stood up and gutted Hiei on the spot, if only to keep from having to do anything ever again. 

Somewhere, he realized that this wasn't a very rational response, and waited for his brain to turn over something better. Rocks ground together as Hiei shifted his weight on the gravel and crouched down. 

"Kurama?" 

Light fingertips skimmed over Kurama's bangs, and he shivered as the touch sent a scattering of Hiei's surface thoughts through him. 

Kurama closed his eyes, absorbing exasperation, worry, and something gentler. 

"Whatever grief you feel," Hiei said, voice deep and soft and undeniable, "it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won't bring anyone back." 

Kurama wanted to laugh, a laugh with hard edges, like the kind he could feel jostling about just under his skin, vying for space--all the hollowness filled with pain. Just as quickly it flipped into a desire to cry, to curl up and let the tears fall and forget he had any other responsibilities. 

Both responses required more effort than he could dredge up, so he did neither. 

Numbness and cold blended together into a loud nothing that drowned the world. Somewhere, he could feel Hiei standing just outside his self-imposed wall, waiting with a kind of patience Kurama had only felt once before--in very old trees that had survived a great fire. The suffering was over, and they had simply been waiting for life to start again. 

Time was passing. Kurama could feel it in the way the wind shifted direction. But it didn't disturb him. It didn't exist with him inside his walls. 

Then Hiei's hand slipped easily through his solitude and settled on his head. 

"I will help you with your brother," Hiei said. 

Kurama closed his eyes. He felt there should be tears, but there were none. He turned toward Hiei and sat up and the fire demon's touch shifted until Hiei was gripping his chin, the light pressure of his fingertips tipping Kurama's chin up, telling Kurama to open his eyes. Kurama looked at Hiei. 

"It's time to get up." 

So Kurama stood up, walked through cold air, in the lessening darkness, and cut Shuichi down from the doorway. He didn't look too closely at the body, because there was no time to clean away the blood. He had better memories of Shuichi and didn't want to mar them with a last look. 

He kept his eyes averted, and felt the flare of heat from Hiei's demon fire, grateful, in some distant way, for the lack smell or sound--the fire and everything it burned was in Hiei's tight control. There was silence, and when the heat faded away, Kurama turned back around. 

Immediately, he searched for Shuichi, and then for signs of Shuichi's remains, suddenly upset by his own cowardice, and suddenly desperate for a chance to say "goodbye." 

The night was lightening into a gray dawn and the air was damp with a promise of snow. Kurama stared out over the shrine's gravel lawn and listened to the soft sounds of Hiei's coat flapping in the breeze. 

"The others?" Kurama asked. 

"Gone," Hiei answered. 

Something horrible tightened in Kurama's throat. "Dead?" 

"No," Hiei said with a steady confidence that allowed Kurama to breathe again. "Just...missing." 

"Not..." Kurama tried to interpret that. "Not in the human world any longer? They're in the Makai?" 

Hiei said nothing, which was confirmation enough. 

Kurama looked up at the flat sky. "Then there's no way to reach them." 

"Unless we ask for help." 

Kurama blinked, meandering thoughts focusing. He looked at Hiei and the fire demon looked back. 

"Let's go talk to Koenma." 

In the dusty recesses of his library, the King of Hell (Junior) sneezed. The force of it nearly sent him tumbling backwards off the ladder. 

"Bless you," said a voice beneath him. 

Koenma sniffled. "Thank you--Kurama!" 

Standing at the base of the ladder, looking up with identical impassive expressions, were Kurama and Hiei. Koenma made a mental note to kick George in the shin next time he saw the ogre, for not giving him warning. 

"Er. Hello," Koenma said in his most neutral-yet-friendly tone. "Nice to see the two of you--" 

"Come down here, please," Kurama said in a tone that brooked no argument. "We need to talk." 

For a moment, Koenma actually found himself mulling over the inclination to stay right where he was, and call for the guards. There was something about the two oldest members of the Urameshi Team that said they were on a warpath, which meant there would be heartache and pain and more paperwork than his office could hold. Instead, he heaved a sigh, grabbed the book he'd climbed the ladder to reach, and made his way to the ground. 

"What do you want to talk about?" Koenma asked, pushing between them and making his way toward a small study nook with a desk and chair. 

"I think you know," Kurama said. 

Koenma stood on tiptoe to put the book on the desk, and hopped up into the chair. He didn't look at either of them until he was comfortable. Then he pointed to the book. "That's for you." 

Kurama reached out and touched the cover, frowning slightly. A stylized crow gleamed in gold from the leather. 

"It's everything the Reikai has recorded on Crow activity," the junior god of the spirit world continued. 

"It's not much," Kurama said, picking the book up and flipping through it. 

"The pages often go blank after they're written. I don't think...whatever controls the crows...likes being visible, except in enigmatic moments." 

"Sounds like someone else we know," Hiei said, glaring at Koenma. 

Kurama snapped the book shut and tucked it away. "I need passage to the Makai." 

"Hiei can allow you to enter through a portal in his kingdom." 

"Hiei hasn't the ability to dictate the comings and goings of the dead. It has to be you." 

Koenma stared up at Kurama, and the kitsune regarded him steadily. "You know I'm not authorized to grant passage to the Makai." 

"I know you're not _supposed_ to." 

"Same difference," Koenma said, slipping off the chair and walking toward the exit. Slowly, so he could convince himself that he was not fleeing. 

"We're running out of time." Kurama was pursuing, not quite anxious enough to actually block Koenma's way, but pacing just slightly ahead of him. "And we're out of options. I'm sorry to ask this of you, but it has to be done. Yusuke, Kuwabara, and the others--you know where they are, don't you? You can send me to them. I can, I _have_ to save them. Koenma." 

Then the kitsune did move to stand in his way, green eyes beseeching. Koenma looked away, and might have turned in a different direction and continued on, but he sensed in Hiei's tension that the fire demon would stop him. 

He took a breath, and spoke quietly. "This is where it becomes complicated." 

Kurama answered, neutral. "Does it?" 

"You should be done, over." Koenma gave Kurama a near-accusatory look, then slid his gaze to Hiei. "But it was technically Hiei's hand that struck down the last of your intended victims, not you. And you have declared this second vendetta... Which the crow has answered for reasons inexplicable." 

"How does this make things difficult?" 

"You know I can't interfere. It's still a matter for higher powers. You are still under the jurisdiction of the crow." 

Kurama looked at him. 

"I _want_ to help you, Kurama." 

"Then help me." 

Memories like a cold sea. Yuusuke was floundering in high tide, the waters sucking him down into a void and he plunged-- 

_"Come to the funeral." _

"No." 

It was a beautiful day. The sunlight shimmered over snow. Kuwabara looked worn out and solemn, out of place and awkward in black. Everything was wrong-- all the pieces of Yuusuke's life jarring together. 

"Fuck you," Kuwabara snarled. 

You're not doing much better than I am. So how…

_The wind was piercing, edged. It snapped at their clothing as they stood with so much space between them it was difficult to see Kuwabara, though he was close enough that Yuusuke could count the stitches on the hem of his coat. _

"Fuck you for being such a coward, Urameshi." There was so much vehement hostility in Kuwabara's voice, surprising Yuusuke so much he failed to flare at being called a coward. "Kurama deserves better than your bellyaching." 

How can you find these words? How can you say anything more than NO over and over again? How…?

_ "Come to the funeral, Urameshi." _

Kuwabara's voice was steady, the edge had gone softer, anger turning to unswerving determination. 

"Come and say goodbye." 

"No." 

How can you be so eager to let go?

_ "Because that's being human, you fuckhead!" _

And that's when he remembered Kuwabara could read minds. 

Anger radiated from Kuwabara, and fear turning into anger because it was Kuwabara, and Kuwabara the Great was never afraid. The emotions broke free, shoving up against Yusuke like belligerent hands. 

"Maybe you_ have it in with death, maybe _you_ get to be immortal, but the rest of us are just--this. Just this life, Urameshi." _

Kuwabara stood, fists clenched, leaning against the wind as if it were capable of knocking him over. 

"And like it or not, funerals are something you're going to attend more than this once." 

Head above water, struggling at the edge of awareness. There were voices around him and the air was dry. 

"Keep that one under until we're ready." 

Someone he didn't know, referring to him with a casual menace that raised his hackles, before his center of consciousness wrenched and he was falling-- 

_ Mortality blindsided him. Not his own, but the frailty of everyone around him, and suddenly he was afraid to touch anything, to even move, the world turned to thin glass. _

I can't stay.__

Fear was an opponent like any other. Hit it hard enough and it would fall down. But Yuusuke couldn't fight this without breaking things, people. He wanted to hurt something. He wanted to kill_ something. _

But not here.

Acidic purple lightning against a sickly sky--The Makai, as far as he could get from normal, human. 

Breaking through waves. Yuusuke could feel ropes digging into his wrists, and hear high, thin laughter. Someone was tugging at him--not physically, but at the edges of his mind, and as he sunk, they grabbed on and came with him. 

_Genkai said, "It's time to stop." _

Yuusuke stood, panting the harsh air, his knuckles bleeding, everything hurting, especially his jaw where Genkai's foot had connected just moments before. 

Her voice was a jumble of sound. Language was difficult to process because he hadn't spoken to anyone in.... 

Suddenly aware of time, it stretched out behind him like a wasteland, which he had crossed in a delirium, and he realized that he'd been gone for much longer than it had seemed. 

That he hadn't heard anything but the screaming in his own head, and from the demons who'd gotten in the way of his rage for...years. 

"It's time to stop," she said, and he realized she'd been repeating herself for several minutes, in the same calm, unmovable voice. That no matter how long he fought her, her words would remain like a wall. 

She shifted her stance, realizing she had his attention. "It's time to come back." 

"No." 

He barely recognized his own voice, though the only word left to him was a familiar comfort. 

Genkai was unmoved and unmoving. The lines of her face seemed deeper than the last time he'd seen her, her dark eyes unreadable but for the grim hardness. He needed to make her understand. 

"I can't...go back." It was so difficult to form sentences, to argue against her unwavering gaze. "I... don't want to see..." 

Kurama's grave.

"Yuusuke!" 

Yuusuke woke up to the ringing echo of Kurama's voice. He sat up quickly and looked around. There wasn't much to see but shifting fog, white-bright from some everpresent light source. 

"Kurama...?" He looked around and didn't see anything. Shifting to stand, he noticed the ground beneath him was pale yellow sand and gravel. 

For a moment, he was caught in memories, and it was years ago when death was still a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He stumbled to his feet. 

"Kurama!" His own voice sounded hollow in the fog. 

"Yuusuke..." 

Kurama's voice was so close, Yuusuke turned quickly, expecting to see the redhead standing behind him. But there was nothing but featureless gray-white, stirring in the wake of his movement. 

"Yuusuke," Kurama's voice was urgent. "Wake.... Kuwabara is...." 

The fog was a solid thing. Yuusuke shoved his way through it angrily. "Kurama, dammit...where are you?" 

"Yuusuke, get up. You have to..." 

"I'm up!" He moved in the direction of Kurama's voice, but it just continued to get further away. 

"You have to listen to me," Kurama's disembodied voice insisted. "You have to..." 

"I'm _up_, I'm _listening_, I'm--" 

Yuusuke stopped, staring at the figure that had resolved abruptly out of the mist. A large man in a trench coat, hunched over something on the ground. 

"Kuwabara...?" 

The larger man straightened and turned to look at him. A faintly glowing opalescence moved restlessly across Kuwabara's eyes like the stirring fog and caught the glow of the solid yellow-bright sword clenched in his hand. 

It was possible, Yuusuke realized with a certain amount of disbelief, that his day was getting worse. 

Then he noticed the person at Kuwabara's feet, and all other thoughts flew from his mind. 

"Keiko!" He rushed over and knelt beside her. She was bloodied and pale, and far too still. "No." He reached out for her. "No...Keiko, hang on!" He gathered her up, looking at Kuwabara. "What the hell happ--" 

Kuwabara kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling. He rolled into a crouch, Keiko still held protectively in his arms. The pain of the blow already fading into nothing worth noticing, Yuusuke focused on Keiko's wounds--long slash marks, clean cuts. Sword wounds. 

He raised his eyes, fixing them on the man standing across from him. "What's going on?" he asked quietly. 

Kuwabara said nothing, just began to walk toward him, sword held low and ready, murderous intent in clouded eyes. There were patches of blood on his trench coat, but he didn't move as if he were wounded. 

"Who are you?" Yuusuke asked. 

Kuwabara smiled. "Why do you think I'm anyone other than who I appear to be?" 

Yuusuke put Keiko down carefully and stood, weight balanced, concentration narrowing into the rhythm of his heartbeat, the tension of his muscles, and the opponent across from him. 

"Because Kuwabara wouldn't have said 'why do you think I'm anyone other than blah blah blah,'" Yuusuke mimicked in a higher pitched voice, stepping forward deliberately, away from Keiko, keeping perfectly balanced. "He would've said something like, 'Are you stupid? I'm me!'" 

He took another step forward, and then set his stance, facing the other man, hands loose at his sides. 

When the other man rushed him, Yuusuke sidestepped easily, caught the wrist of his leading arm, and twisted toward the ground. The next moment, Yuusuke had pinned him face down, knee in his tricep, hand on the back of his head and he squeezed. He could feel the bones of the skull grinding together. 

Ki power flared beneath Yuusuke's hands, orange-bright and Yuusuke jerked away as he recognized the signature. 

The reiken swung for his head and he leaped away, landing lightly out of sword's reach. His opponent stood up, Kuwabara's ki signature flared bright around him. 

"Are you certain I'm not who I appear to be?" the thing wearing Kuwabara's face asked, coolly amused smile curling his lips. 

"Yeah," Yuusuke said. Though the ki might be Kuwabara's the person talking to him was not. "I'm sure. Now get the fuck out of my friend." 

He sprang, and aimed a kick for the thing's head, trying to wipe the smile from the thing's face, but it dodged in a movement so graceful that if Yuusuke hadn't been certain it wasn't Kuwabara before, he was now. 

Yuusuke's next strike was hard and fast, to the knees. He was trying to judge speed and stamina without killing Kuwabara--which was difficult. He was rusty at fighting without deadly intent. 

And it was even trickier, because he kept having this overwhelming urge to sit down. He wouldn't have to fight at all if he just sat down. He could take care of Keiko. He could think about how to get out of here. There were so many other things to do besides kick Kuwabara's ass. 

Not Kuwabara, he reminded himself with a growl, shaking free of the pressing suggestions. Something _inside_ Kuwabara, that needed to have its ass kicked in the worst possible way. 

Yuusuke wrenched his focus back on task with just enough time to leap out of the way as Kuwabara's reiken swung at him, hard enough to take off a limb. 

"Yuusuke!" Kurama shouted in his ear, and Yuusuke flinched in surprise, turning, half-expecting to see the redhead standing next to him with a look of worried exasperation to match his tone. 

A flicker of light out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, blocking the reiken with his arm--_not smart_--but, fortunately, ki to ki, he was still stronger than Kuwabara, and his power flared, acting as a shield. There were sparks where blue and orange collided. 

"Dammit, Kurama!" he shouted at the unseen kitsune. "I'm in the _middle_ of something! So either _help_ me or stop distracting me!" 

Kurama might have said something else, but Yuusuke turned back to his opponent and tuned out everything but the battle. Rage was a metallic taste in the back of his throat. White moved like fog over Kuwabara's eyes, and the smirk, so unlike Kuwabara, deepened. 

"All right, asshole." 

It wasn't at all like his fight with Kurama had been. Whatever was controlling Kuwabara kept the fighting style intact--somewhat haphazard, a combination of street brawling and sword fighting and martial arts. 

That made it easier, because he knew all of Kuwabara's tricks, and wherever the real Kuwabara was, he wasn't letting the thing know all of Yuusuke's. 

It should have been a simple thing, then. Yuusuke was the stronger, faster fighter with all the advantages, except it put something of a crimp in his style to not kill or maim his opponent. Still, it should have been an easy fight, at the end of things. 

So the problem was, it wasn't. Something was wrong. Even Yuusuke, who admitted, down in the deepest part of his mind, that he wasn't the brightest person in the world, realized it. 

It didn't matter how hard he tried. Yuusuke couldn't touch Kuwabara, and it wasn't because the taller man had gained speed from somewhere, but because Yuusuke was getting slower. 

Yuusuke didn't realize he was growling until he ran out of breath and was forced to stop. The silence startled him. Kuwabara was never silent, but the thing in Kuwabara's body didn't make a sound, just kept smiling. Even the soft flick and ruffle of his clothes and trench coat seemed stifled. 

It was _wrong_. Kuwabara's silence was strange and Yuusuke snarled, trying to make it right, trying to hit Kuwabara hard enough to knock the whatever clean out of him. 

But he couldn't. He couldn't get close to Kuwabara, now. Weighed down by the air, by--something. 

_You need a plan,_ an inner voice told him, his inner Kurama, bespectacled and calm. And Yuusuke didn't know why he pictured Kurama in glasses, but there he was. _You need to figure out how he's beating you._

That was not Yuusuke's style. He thought Kurama would've known that, by now. He just hit things, and they fell down. And if they didn't, he hit them harder. It had always worked before. 

Only he couldn't hit Kuwabara, felt like he was moving through sticky, clingy webbing, and he was so tired. 

_Yuusuke,_ his inner Kurama berated sternly. _Get up._

But he couldn't, he just couldn't.... He sat down on the ground and watched as the thing in Kuwabara got closer. He was so angry he could feel the demon in him tearing just under the skin. But the angrier he was, the more tired he felt. That didn't make sense, but Yuusuke's mind, not the quickest at the best of times, was slowing down. 

_Yuusuke,_ Kurama's voice, urgent. 

Little boy resentment, tired of being scolded, bubbled to the surface. "Not...helping..." he told inner Kurama petulantly. 

The kitsune responded with desperation, and suddenly, inner Kurama was outside, shaking him, as Kuwabara's sword swung down. 

**"Yuusuke!"**

And Yuusuke woke up. 

The first thing he noticed was Kuwabara, still above him, swinging the reiken for the deathblow. Yuusuke flexed muscles to roll away, and the rope tying him down shredded. Now he could move. He side-kicked Kuwabara in the stomach, hard enough to knock him on his ass. 

"Ha!" Yuusuke gloated, springing to his feet. He reveled in how easy it was to move. The fog was gone, and Yuusuke was standing on pale yellow sand and loose gravel, the dry air tugging at his clothes and hair, and whispering among the ruins that looked very familiar. Ruins and dust, the perpetually overcast Makai sky... 

He took a step and fell down again. It was tricky to be dangerously cool, Yuusuke grumbled to himself, when unexpected things insisted on tripping you. There seemed to be something wrapped around his ankle, holding it in place. It was only when he reached down to wrench it off that he realized it was a skeletal hand. 

"EW!" 

Yuusuke's manly strength went right out the window when faced with bones and rotting flesh. He jerked his hand back and then tried to yank his ankle free, but the fingers of the corpse-hand tightened, and that was even freakier. 

He rolled onto his stomach so he had better leverage, and noticed the Kuwabara-imposter was back on his feet. Yuusuke had finally knocked the smile from its face, he noticed, and now it looked pissed. It was stalking toward him, deadly intent in its white-hazed eyes. 

"Goddammit!" Yuusuke cursed the gods and the world in general for never cutting him a fucking break when he needed it. 

He pulled his trapped leg as hard as he could and the hand gave. Yuusuke got his legs back under him and turned to smirk triumphantly at the undead hand. 

This was when he realized that, instead of pulling free, he'd managed to pull out the body attached to the hand--well, half the body. The torso lay on its side, face down in the dirt, filthy and decaying, lank, long jet hair and the remains of black clothes hanging from its frame. 

It raised its head--Yuusuke glimpsed dead-jelly eyes, a hole where its nose should have been--and opened its mouth, full of rotten teeth. Then it exhaled. 

The swarm of black, buzzing bugs that shot out of its mouth hit Yuusuke full force and knocked him back into the not-Kuwabara, interrupting its attack. 

"Yuusuke!" 

For a moment, Yuusuke was convinced he was back in the dream, and he wasn't _really_ swatting desperately at hell-flies, or hearing Kurama yell his name. 

"JOU ENSATSU KEN!!" 

Heat was like a physical blow, followed by the percussive sound of several large explosions that had enough force to knock him down. 

When the dust settled and he could hear again, he discovered someone was laying on top of him, their breath against his ear loud in the quiet aftershocks. 

Kurama, Yuusuke realized when he turned his head and spotted bright red hair. 

"I didn't know dead men needed to breathe," he said conversationally. 

The breathing paused for a moment, and then released again in a soft, huffed sigh. "Yuusuke." Fond exasperation. 

Yes, definitely Kurama, who'd knocked him down to protect him from Hiei's demon fire attack. 

"Are they _exploding_ bugs or something?" he asked incredulously as Kurama stood and helped him to his feet. 

He looked to Kurama for an answer, but the kitsune's focus was elsewhere. Yuusuke followed his gazed and saw the corpse was standing, now, staring intently at Kurama with dead-jelly eyes. 

"**Kurama**," it whispered, in a voice that made the ground vibrate. 

Yuusuke might not have always been the swiftest on the uptake, but he knew that when a rotting corpse that breathed exploding bugs knew you by name, it was probably a bad sign. He bristled, ready for another round, but Kurama broke his focus with a quiet voice. 

"Yuusuke," he said, never looking away from the undead, "go save Kuwabara." 

And then, with a casual strength that would annoy Yuusuke when he thought about it later, Kurama shoved him backward. He tumbled through a dimensional rip and fell on his ass. 

"Huh?" 

Disgruntled, he stood up and rubbed his sore butt. He was really tired of falling down. Looking around, he realized where he was in an instant: the space between worlds, the dark plane of not-reality between the Makai and the Ningenkai. It was an empty blackness without difinition, but for what Yuusuke's mind forced into it, the only light source Yuusuke's own ki aura and... 

In the distance---the blue glow of the barrier, like a chain link fence of energy, separating the two worlds. 

And, near the barrier, a gleam of yellow-orange light. 

Yuusuke took off, running toward it. 

Yuusuke's internal Kurama was back, and reviewing the function of the Barrier, which was, internal Kurama reported dutifully, to keep upper level demons from getting into the human world. The only thing Yuusuke knew of that could break it--was Kuwabara's reiken. 

Kuwabara--who was currently smiling as if kicking puppies, flaying people alive, and releasing demons from the Makai was everything he needed to do to make it a good day. 

"Hey you!" Yuusuke yelled at him. "Stop!" 

Not exactly wit at its finest, but he was having a bad day, and it accomplished what Yuusuke'd been hoping for. Kuwabara looked at him, the cool illumination of the barrier casting his face into strange shadows. 

Things, Yuusuke reflected, were bad. 

Then, as almost always happened next, they got worse. 

In his moment of hesitation, the not-Kuwabara grinned at him, turned, and sliced a person-length hole in the Barrier. 

"Son of a _bitch_!" And the last word he emphasized by decking Kuwabara as hard as he could. 

Kuwabara, who gave him such a startled look that Yuusuke almost felt guilty. 

Kuwabara, whose eyes were back to normal, Yuusuke noticed, just before they rolled back into his head, and the taller boy passed out. 

"Er...oops." 

Kuwabara woke up rather surprised his jaw was still attached to his face. Concerned green eyes swam into focus first. 

"Kuwabara-kun?" Kurama questioned softly, sounding not-quite-certain that a) Kuwabara could hear him and b) that he was really speaking to Kuwabara at all. 

Kuwabara knew from experience that if he didn't prove he was himself rather soon, he would have to deal with the business end of a rose whip. Or...whatever it was Kurama fought with, these days. 

"Who are you calling 'kun'?" he demanded in a voice that would have been much more threatening if he'd had the energy to put any "oomf" behind it. Then he realized how much it hurt to talk, and shut up with a wince. 

Kurama smiled at him, a bright, warm smile that belayed the fact that Kuwabara _knew_ he'd been ready to gut him just a moment before. 

"Are you in pain?" he asked in a sweet, worried voice. 

Kuwabara glared as hard as he could. If it had been anyone but Kurama, he might have decked him for asking such a stupid question. 

"Not as much as Urameshi's going to hurt when I get my hands on him," he mumbled acidly. 

Kurama's smile turned a little wry. A nervous chuckle brought Kuwabara's eyes to Yuusuke, who knelt just behind Kurama, and had the decency to look abashed. Kuwabara was in no mood to be forgiving, but he also wasn't in any shape for retaliation, so he ignored Yuusuke and tried sitting up. 

When sitting up worked, he felt his jaw. 

"Why isn't my jaw broken?" he asked Kurama conversationally. 

"Your ki automatically deflected most of the attack," the redhead told him, sounding like a proud mother. 

Kuwabara boggled. "It..._deflected_ most of it?" He turned a dangerous look on Yuusuke who was a bit shamefaced. "What the hell were you trying to do, Urameshi? Take my fucking head off?" 

"No," Yuusuke bristled. "I was trying to save your fucking life! What the hell is _wrong_ with you? You couldn't even resist a fucking possession?" 

"Fuck you!" Kuwabara flared. "Have you ever tried to resist a possession?" 

"Well...no. But--!" 

"Shut up," Hiei growled, sounding both irritated and bored. 

Which, of course, made Kuwabara angrier. "Butt out, you...you..." Kuwabara floundered. "Tiny annoying guy!" 

The blow to the head must have addled him more than he'd first thought, at least that's what he told himself. 

"Idiot," Hiei muttered. 

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT YOU--" 

"I'm pretty sure he's calling _you_ an idiot, Possession Boy," Yuusuke piped in gleefully. 

"That's enough," Kurama said, soft and decisive. 

Kuwabara found himself shutting up immediately, and was only slightly mollified to see Yuusuke and Hiei do the same. He took the moment of silence to look around. 

They were in an alleyway, again. Paved streets, glass-and-steel straight-lined buildings, and the muted sound of traffic--they were back in Japan. He guessed Tokyo, although they could really be in the business district of just about any city. It felt like very early morning, or nearly night--the sun was either just rising or already set, but the light was lingering. 

"Where are we?" Kuwabara asked, getting to his feet, trying not to wince at the bruises that immediately made themselves known. He looked around and made a count: Yuusuke, the Shrimp, and Kurama. "Where are the others?" 

"We're in the Marunouchi District. We're working on finding the others," Yuusuke told him. "Kurama used his bird-sense to bring us out of the between-space and then we decided to wait for you to come around." Yuusuke smirked, but the look Kuwabara gave him must have been impressively homicidal, because Yuusuke suppressed it quickly. "Anyway. That's what's going on." 

There weren't many people out on the main street, but still, Kuwabara was glad they'd popped out of a dimensional portal into someplace inconspicuous. He'd never figured out how a tall guy with orange hair, a loudmouth punk, and a small man in what was, essentially, a dress, could draw as little attention as they did, but they seemed to have gone unnoticed while Kuwabara recovered. 

"Kurama's bird sense?" Kuwabara said, finally, looking at the redhead. Kurama was wearing black-and-white makeup again, which would do nothing to help them blend. 

"Yeah." 

Kuwabara would've been happy to beat an elaboration out of Yuusuke, despite the fact that every muscle in his body hurt, but he was interrupted by his cop-instincts. 

"Hey, lady, come and party with us," an aggressively cheerful male voice slurred somewhere out in the street, close enough to the alleyway that Kuwabara picked it up. 

"Not even if you were actually my age and much prettier, kiddo. Get out of my way." 

The voice of the woman who answered made him blink. 

"Aw, come on, sweetheart. Don't be like that." 

"What--sober?" The woman sounded as if she were sneering. 

Kuwabara began moving toward the alley's opening. 

"Man, you've got some tongue on you. Wanna put it to better use?" 

The woman's amusement was sharp enough to castrate. "Oh, sweetie, you need to update your porn if you think that line's original in any way." 

Tekko was standing in the street, looking roughed-up and mud-splattered-hair wilder than usual, split lip, blood darkening her jeans at the knee and on one thigh, shirt torn. She looked cold and annoyed. She was facing off against three young men in leather-punk gear-80's style. All of them rather drunk. 

Then she spotted Kuwabara and her eyes went wide, caught somewhere between shock and incredulity. She stepped impatiently around the boys and toward him, the surprise warping into irritation. 

"I can't believe that crazy old bitch was right," she said in way of greeting. 

"Genkai?" Yuusuke asked, stepping out of the alley after Kuwabara. "Yeah. Ain't that a kick in the ass?" 

The small "gang," noticing Tekko suddenly had backup, slunk away. 

"How the hell did _you_ get here?" Kuwabara exploded. "And what the hell happened to you?" 

Tekko scowled. "She _threw_ me out of a _moving van_." 

"Genkai?" Yuusuke guessed again, sounding fond. "Yeah. She does that." 

Tekko ignored Yuusuke, though the anger drained from her eyes and stance just a little, leaving her with a tired, slightly bewildered expression. "She said I was the only one they wouldn't go after. Something about--power. And my lacking any." Tekko ran a hand through her hair, which only served to muss it further. "She said to find you. No, she said I _would_ find you." 

"Can you tell us where they were taking you?" Kurama asked politely, still hanging back, mostly in shadow. Kuwabara guessed he didn't want to be out in the open with Crow makeup. 

Hiei was nowhere to be seen, which was good enough for Kuwabara. 

"We were heading toward the Palace," Tekko said, frowning. "But I don't think that's their destination. They kept talking about 'rituals' and 'wards' and 'ceremonial daggers.' You know…things that require a lot of space and lack of twitchy guards and their darned habits of interrupting suspicious activity." 

"Kokyo Gaien and Higashi Gyoen," Kuwabara guessed, naming the large garden-parks bordering the Imperial Palace. 

"Kitanomaru Park and Hibiya Park, too," Yuusuke pointed out. "Kurama?" Yuusuke looked over his shoulder toward the redhead. "Think you can narrow it down?" 

"The...crow sense is...muddled. I could probably narrow it down if we could get closer." 

"We'll need a car, then," Tekko spoke up. "Because I'm _not_ walking." 

"We could take the subway," Kuwabara suggested. 

"Does anyone have money for passes?" Yuusuke asked, turning out empty pockets. 

There was a moment of silence. 

"All right," Kuwabara agreed. "We'll need a car. First thing's first, though." 

It was both satisfying and unbelievably painful to crack his fist across Yuusuke's face, and even if the dark haired boy barely staggered, he at least looked very shocked. 

"What the FUCK was that for?" 

"You couldn't have knocked me out _before_ I cut open the dimensional barrier?" Kuwabara bellowed, peripherally aware of the stares he was getting from the other pedestrians. 

Yuusuke considered this as he rubbed his jaw and gave Kuwabara a disgruntled look. "I deserved that." 

It wasn't quite a question, but Kuwabara confirmed it anyway. "Yeah." 

"...okay." 

Kurama paused as he came out of the alleyway and glanced between them. After deciding it was safe to proceed, he walked up to them and said, "Where are we going to find a car?" 

"How about this one?" Yuusuke pointed to a car parked in the street next to them. 

"The Mini?" Tekko sounded incredulous. She took a look around as if taking a head count, and then caught sight of Kurama-in full Crow makeup-and blinked. 

"Is it yours?" Kuwabara demanded, knowing the answer. 

Yuusuke frowned with a vaguely confused look. "No." 

"We can't take some random person's car!" Kuwabara asserted. 

"Why not?" 

"Why _not_?" 

The dark-haired boy shrugged. "Yeah." 

It was difficult to argue against Yuusuke's earnest expression, but Kuwabara made an effort anyway. "Besides being against the law, we don't have keys and I bet it's locked." 

"Not any more." Kurama tucked his lock pick back into his hair and opened the door. 

Kuwabara was scandalized. "Kurama!" 

"I can hotwire it." Yuusuke glanced at Tekko and backtracked. "Er, not that I've done stuff like this before or anything..." 

"Urameshi...!" 

Tekko stepped forward, expression menacing. "One side, rookie." 

And then she slipped into the driver's seat and popped opening the key side of the steering wheel with practiced ease, taking a penknife out of her pocket to cut the plastic casing off the wires. 

Kuwabara stared. "Te-Tekko-san? You're hotwiring a car?" 

She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Hey, it's for a good cause." 

"I am going straight to hell..." 

The friendly cuff Yuusuke gave to Kuwabara's shoulder was, perhaps, a little harder than it needed to be. His grin was demon-sharp. "I don't see how that's different from what we do on a regular basis." 

"...When did _I_ become the straight man?" Kuwabara lamented.

* * *


End file.
